I think I may have mentioned my obsession with King Arthur Flour. When their catalogue comes in the mail, all the bills and letters gets tossed aside as I stand in the hall, reading it cover to cover without bothering to sit down. You might think that not being able to eat most of their products would have lessened this obsession at least somewhat. But it hasn’t. It’s the pictures, the ideas, the baking equipment that draw me in. It’s the whole baking culture, really. Admittedly, there may be an element of voyeurism to my love of KAF – I can look, but I can’t touch (or taste, as the case may be). If I could satisfy my food cravings through my sense of sight, the King Arthur Flour catalogue would be my breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and snacks in between.
They also have a wonderful website with recipes, baking tips, tutorials, blogs, a messageboard, and of course, the products for sale. If you are a serious baker and you haven’t checked out the King Arthur Flour website, get your butt on over there. Even if you can’t buy their products in your area, you can get a lot of wonderful ideas and how-tos from the website. I myself have a whole slew of recipes saved in my personal recipe box on the site, most of them bookmarked prior to the realization that I was pre-diabetic. At the risk of sounding like a paid spokesperson, there is no end of inspiration for me from King Arthur Flour.
Case in point: feeling uninspired about dinner in general one evening last week, I raided the chest freezer and came up with a container of my husband’s homemade ham and bean soup. It’s very good, but it needed an accompaniment of the bread/biscuit variety to round it out for dinner. I remembered a recipe for a savoury scone with sesame seeds from the KAF website and thought if I could make a low carb version, it would satisfy. Miracle of miracles, I actually had all of the ingredients on hand. It also seemed like a perfect opportunity to use my carbalose flour, which I’ve only tried out once so far. The reviews on carbalose suggest that there is a bit of an aftertaste that is best cut with almond flour. So in went almond flour and a bit of flax meal as well.
The Results : These didn’t rise all that much, but flavour-wise, they were excellent. I do wish the sesame seeds on top got a little more toasted. I even tried to broil them for a minute to brown them up but was afraid of burning them. Next time, I might toast the seeds before baking, to enhance their flavour. Everyone liked the scones, children included, and they were an excellent accompaniment to the soup. There was no carbalose aftertaste and I’d venture to say that no one would know that they were low carb if I didn’t tell them. I would happily make these again.
Savoury Garlic and Sesame Scones
1 cup carbalose flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3 oz cream cheese, cut in small pieces
2 eggs (1 separated, white reserved for glaze)
1/3 cup milk, almond milk or plain yogurt
sesame seeds (lightly toasted beforehand, if you wish)
Preheat oven to 450F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
In large bowl, whisk together flour, almond flour, flax meal, baking powder, salt, garlic, and xanthan gum. Cut in cream cheese until mixture forms even crumbs.
In a small bowl, beat together whole egg, one egg yolk, and milk or yogurt. Stir gently into dry ingredients until dough begins to come together.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a rough rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into six squares, then cut each square diagonally into triagles to create 12 scones.
Transfer scones carefully to prepared baking sheet. Whisk remaining egg white and brush over scones. Sprinkle each scone with sesame seeds.
Bake for 10 minutes or until scones are light golden brown. Let cool on wire rack.
Makes 12 servings. 7 g total carbs, 4.25g of fiber per serving.
