as I'd threatened to do

Tuesday was something of a keto feast: I had keto "baguettes" (from my old Hungry Elephant recipe) and keto fondue. The fondue is from a recipe that switched out only one carby ingredient: the cornstarch that normally coats the pieces of cheese to keep everything from splitting as you stir. The recipe called for a teaspoon of xanthan gum for two pounds of cheese and two cups of wine. The only other carby element was the white wine, which wasn't exactly replaceable (macros: about 3% carbs by weight, which isn't bad at all).

mise en place

You can see the oven's hot spots and cool spots.

I added powdered Parmesan cheese this time, which may have helped with browning.

This bread is at its freshest and lightest when it's straight out of the oven. After it cools down, it becomes a lot denser and heavier. Good with butter, jam, herbed cheese, or crostini toppings.

That said, no one will ever mistake these for real baguettes. They lack the outer crust and inner crumb.

Gruyère and Emmentaler, diced and mixed.

wine added, along with white pepper, black pepper, lemon juice, nutmeg, and xanthan gum

after melting and ready for dipping

that first dip

I ended up cubing up all of the bread and using it, and even after such a vulgar feast (which was also my only meal of the day), I still had plenty of cheese left over, so I might see about using the cheese for a keto croque madame.

But now: I fast for three days: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'll have to avoid overeating over the coming weekend. That's the danger of fasting: the desire to overeat afterwards.

Note: the recipe I used noted that you can just make a traditional fondue using cornstarch or arrowroot powder (which I also have—very carby) as a binder because the amount of powder involved still means a very low per-serving carb amount. I might do that next time: xanthan gum is good in certain recipes, and it did work this time to preserve the fondue's texture, but you can still feel a certain unpleasant, slick texture when you use it.