Baking Advice Needed

[bakawaka 108]

i am not vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free but try to apply many of the techniques to achieve low-fat, low-carb, nutrition-dense, no-sugar/low-sugar, low-calorie, high-Protein food. Problem: i never learned how to cook. i bake something that to me tastes great but the texture is not right. i puree/mix sweet potato, tofu, egg whites, coconut flour, corn meal and artificial sweetener and then bake. it ends up looking like a cake. Tastes great to me and meets nutritional goals. The outer texture is great. the inner part remains too soft. How can I achieve a harder texture in the inside part? i know that this is an odd question but am hoping that someone who knows food chemistry can provide some advice. i would like to achieve a cake-like texture. At the moment, the inside texture is more like a very thick pudding.

There is no white flour. And I don't want to use white flour because of the carbs. I have tried adding baking powder and/or guar gum and/or xantham gum. This technique did not make any difference. So could it be the case that I am not leaving the dish in the over long enough? Or is there some sort of magic ingredient to add? Or do I need to add, perhaps, one TBSP of white flour in order to get the benefits of gluten?

i never cooked pre-surgery and thus ate out all the time, which is one of the reasons I gained weight. Now I am trying to learn how to cook in order to prepare my own food that provides the right amount of calories and nutrients. I experiment a lot and have improved my techniques over the past year - I even learned how to do make an omelette by watching YouTube videos. I want to learn how to bake vegan/vegetarian/low-fat, etc.

I find a lot of helpful tips on YouTube - demonstrations by cooks. But I have not found a YouTube video or article via Google that addresses this baking issue.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for anyone who might be able to offer insight.

[momohime 121]

Let me preface by saying I am in no way an expert cook by any means!

I actually prefer when things are kinda doughy on the inside and will purposefully not cook them as long as directed to achieve that. Stands to reason that cooking them longer would solve the problem, although you might have to adjust your cooking temperature to keep the outside from getting overcooked.

You could also try baking things in smaller sized pans so the heat is more evenly distributed throughout. So.. for example, instead of a cake pan, use a cupcake pan. I've seen brownie pans that are purposefully divided so that there's more "edge", which to me looked crazy at the time cause I had no idea who would want that! But anyway... something like that might help too.

[terrydumont46 1,954]

once the "cake" is brown cover it with foil and a bit lower temp to finish baking. but corn flouris a carb so cooking with it instead of flour isn't making anything more healthy. look online for low carb. cooking. it will teach you how to substitute ingred. gotta watch the sugar free items too. some cannot be baked. like nutria sweet but stevia can be. get a cookbook. good luck.

[bakawaka 108]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Will give all of it a try. At age 50 I am truly starting from basically a zero knowledge base in cooking. It helps immensely to get suggestions. I will keep trying to learn.

[pink dahlia 2,513]

Im probably the last person who should give you cooking advice as im just an okay cook. I really did nt take an interest in cooking much until last year when we finally got our small ugly kitchen remodelled. Now its the same size, but pretty with more countertop space and storage. Anyhoo, I found that for beginner cooks , childrens cookbook were a HUGE help. They're geared towards beginners , and have simple instructions and recipes. We lean towards healthy cooking ( diabetic hubby), so maybe see if you can find a kids diabetic cookbook ? Secondhand stores will save you $ on cookbooks too. Also, i get alot of recipes off of Pinterest, lots of pics and step by step instructions. Good luck !

[NMJG 1,266]

Baking powder might be what you are missing.

[bakawaka 108]

just wanted to report back to those who responded. i've been practicing/learning how to cook low-carb. i found that a combination of soy flour, coconut flour and gluten free flour + some baking powder + a little bit of xanthan gum. it really works. i use egg whites plus some eggs (with yolks). one question: should any other liquids be added, such as almond milk?

[Knittychic 24]

i am not vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free but try to apply many of the techniques to achieve low-fat, low-carb, nutrition-dense, no-sugar/low-sugar, low-calorie, high- Protein  food. Problem: i never learned how to cook. i bake something that to me tastes great but the texture is not right. i puree/mix sweet potato, tofu, egg whites, coconut flour, corn meal and artificial sweetener and then bake. it ends up looking like a cake. Tastes great to me and meets nutritional goals. The outer texture is great. the inner part remains too soft. How can I achieve a harder texture in the inside part? i know that this is an odd question but am hoping that someone who knows food chemistry can provide some advice. i would like to achieve a cake-like texture. At the moment, the inside texture is more like a very thick  pudding.
There is no white flour. And I don't want to use white flour because of the carbs. I have tried adding baking  powder and/or guar gum and/or xantham gum. This technique did not make any difference. So could it be the case that I am not leaving the dish in the over long enough? Or is there some sort of magic ingredient to add? Or do I need to add, perhaps, one TBSP of white flour in order to get the benefits of gluten?
i never cooked pre-surgery and thus ate out all the time, which is one of the reasons I gained weight. Now I am trying to learn how to cook in order to prepare my own food that provides the right amount of calories and nutrients. I experiment a lot and have improved my techniques over the past year - I even learned how to do make an omelette by watching YouTube videos. I want to learn how to bake vegan/vegetarian/low-fat, etc.
I find a lot of helpful tips on YouTube - demonstrations by cooks. But I have not found a YouTube video or article via Google that addresses this baking issue.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for anyone who might be able to offer insight.

Try happy herbivore or oh she glows recipes. I am vegan and I just use regular or whole wheat flour, sub eggs for neat eggs-store product, bananas, or my favorite unsweetened applesauce. I use agave nectar instead of sugar usually, sweetener and better for diabetics. I don't bake fancy. I would go by the normal recipe and just start worth a few adjustments of you can. Hope this helps