What's Happening Hot Stuff

I probably should not have titled this post like I did, but I seem to have some sort of morbid fascination with the movie Sixteen Candles and watch snippets of it whenever I am channel surfing and it is on. One of my favorites is the above line by Long Duck Dong.

It is early morning and I have hot rolls baking as I speak. (type?)  I am smelling bread and thinking of a hot rolls slathered in butter, hence "hot stuff". These are not rolls in any traditional sense because I am following a ketogenic way of eating and no grains are allowed. If you have issues with wheat or glutens or just want to try something a little different this might be a decent alternative to traditional bread. Plus it is so easy to make and ease of preparation wins every time.

1¼ cups almond flour
5 tbsp ground psyllium husk powder*
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 teaspoon yeast (it will not make the bread rise but does add a traditional flavor)
2 tsp cider vinegar
3 egg whites
1 cup boiling water
olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover the surface of a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium bowl mix all the dry ingredients. Add the cider vinegar and the egg whites and mix well with an electric mixer. I suppose you could stir it by hand, but why? Add the boiling water in a very slow stream to the mixture and beat until it is about the consistency of play dough. Separate into nine equal portions. Roll into balls and place on the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops of the rolls with olive oil. You can get creative here and add sesame seed, or rosemary, or really whatever you want. Bake for about 50 minutes. The rolls are done when they sound kind of hollow when you thump the bottom of one. (Yeah, that is a serious cooking term)

I ate one just now right out of the oven, hot with butter. They do have a traditional bread feel and tastes close to a whole grain roll. (I said close, as in, it is the closest thing I have had to bread in quite a while and I have really been wanting some bread. All the other keto bread recipes I have tried have tasted really eggy and this one doesn't.) I will freeze all but the one I ate and have the others at various times when I need a little bit more with my meal.

I have heard all these people who declare the wonders of the keto lifestyle, but I can't claim additional clarity which is one of the things I keep hearing over and over. I still keep losing my glasses and keys just like I always did. I am losing weight and do have extra energy, but I am attributing that to not carrying as big a load around every time I move. After 10 weeks on this, I bought a really cute dress for fall. I started with my usual size and it was too big, so the sales person brought me the next size down. Wow, it was a tad too big too. I wound up buying the thing 2 sizes smaller because I figure I will not be wearing it until mid October at the earliest and am hoping for 12 more pounds by then. Fingers crossed and weird almost bread in my mouth!

*For those of you (like me) who had no idea what psyllium husks are, it is the seed husk from the plantago ovato. Think unflavored Metamucil. It has no taste but is a heavy dense fiber, that evidently works in tandem with the baking powder to create air pockets in the dough, making it resemble traditional bread. The  downside is it also tends to make the dough a very light lavender.  I find lavender bread is not as unappealing as I might have thought it would be. One word of caution: since the bread is so fiber rich I think one roll a day is probably the maximum. Maybe I am wrong but I am not willing to gamble on it!