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Zucchini muffins tasted terrible

G

Gran25

Well-Known Member
Messages
89
Location
Canada
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
So I made some low carb zucchini (couregettes to you Brits) muffins with almond flour sweetened with a small amount of Truvia. They smelled good, they looked good but the aftertaste was terrible. My garden is pumping out zucchini like there is no tomorrow and I am considering my options to keep them palatable and low carb: could I sweeten them with a small number of raisins or dates? Use a teensy bit of actual sugar? Use no sweetener? My sweet tooth has been tamed after over a year on LCHF so I am n to looking for the same taste that used to be considered "normal" Any ideas?
 
I'd try stevia or erythritol to sweeten them. Then it's a case of finding the amount that works. Not that I've ever made muffins with zucchini, but have using almond meal.
 
Roasted courgettes are tasty
Zoodles even better,
As a stir fry it is quite tasty.
I heard avocados are better for making baked goods compared to courgettes.
 
You could try making them as savoury muffins without the need for sweetening. I generally make these with ground almonds, grated cheese, usually a bit of milled golden flax seed and a few chopped walnuts, salt & pepper, & sometimes a little paprika or mustard.

If they must be sweet, try erythritol, or erythritol/stevia blends. (Before I ever had T2, I used to have a lovely recipe for zucchini friendship cake that I used to make years ago, given to me by a fellow needlewoman, an American lady whose US army husband was stationed in the UK.)

Robbity
 
Made some courgette fritters with rated cheese a few years back. Remember them being very tasty and the children ate them.
 
Thanks everyone! This summer Mr. Gran25 & I have enjoyed zucchini fritters, frittata, raw, sauted, in a quiche etc. I have several bags in the freezer of grated that I will enjoy through the winter. As, to paraphrase Mr Bennet of P&P fame "we have enjoyed them quite enough now" and I pulled out the last but one plant and retired them to the compost heap. But not before making a succesful batch of muffins which I am currently enjoying with a little melted butter and afternoon tea...recipe to follow.
 
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After reading more about various sugar substitutes I decided to proceed with the concept of no added sweetener other than a very scant amount of raisins. The cost of sugar substitutes is high and the aftertaste unappealing. I really hate coconut flour and have been successful with combining almond flour and a bit of psyllium in other almond flour recipes. For this one I used bran buds instead of psyllium both for their fibre and moisture absorbing properties. The recipe makes 14 muffins (the size that your grandmother used to make before muffins were the size of your head) 6 gms. total carbs /2 gms fibre/4 net carbs per muffin by my reckoning.
Zucchini Muffins
Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups almond flour
1/3 cup bran buds
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
Cinnamon, allspice and cloves to taste
1/2 cup mixed pumpkin, sunflower seeds
1/4 cup raisins
2 cups grated zucchini (wrap in a clean tea towel &squeeze out all of the moisture) very important step
Wet:
1/2 cup melted butter cooled
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 small/med eggs or 4 large

Add wet to dry, mix briefly and spoon into paper lined muffin cups top with a pinch of toasted coconut or a half pecan or walnut.
Bake on convection mode at 350 for 20 minutes...probably a bit longer if you don't have convection
The Mr. & I found them quite tasty and filling
 
wow those look amazing! I love courgettes and they are easy to grow but do come along all at once I never thought of freezing them grated but that makes sense as they breakdown in freezing anyway because of water content. I use grated as a substitute for pasta as I don't have a spiraliser and I'm not convinced it would make enough difference when compared to grated (willing to be corrected on that one though!)

Can you suggest an almond flour to psyllium husk ratio for pastry/biscuits? I've just bought some coconut flour but suspect I'll hate it! Always disliked dessicated coconut......Hate aftertaste of all sweeteners I've tried too. I really don't have a sweet tooth, to me lots of things taste sweet already e.g. cream, vegetables (in fact parsnips have become too sweet recently, though shouldn't be eating them now anyway)

Thanks for sharing the recipe.
 
It's kind of experimental...but aprox 1 tbsp psyllium to 1 cup almond flour. I usually also add 1 tbsp ground flax seed. I am usually satisfied without any baking but now and then it's nice to have a scone or a muffin. A lot of the LC/Keto baking relies on a lot of eggs to do the trick which can be ...well...eggy... I used to make my own bread in the bad old days & haven't found any of the LC bread recipes to be convincing at all and so avoid it all together. Crackers are easy to make LC...too easy in fact so that you will end up eating them all. We usually substitute cucumber slices or celery and load them up with all the good stuff. Anyways here's a couple of good resources for further experimentation.
https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/low-carb-basics-baking-with-almond-flour/
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes/baking
 
Some people find the skin a little bitter and peel their courgettes before grating for cakes.
 
there is a very good courgette lemon drizzle cake recipe using gluten free flour which I am sure could be adapted to low carb by using almond flour and stevia. I have made the gluten free version and it is lovely so I will try adapting it.
I also have a very good low carb recipe for courgette fritters from a keto recipe book - they are absolutely delicious - I make big batches and freeze some - great for breakfast or lunch or just a snack.
 
I have added pineapple to carrot muffins to sweeten them, worked great, but that was when I was only baking gluten-free, not low carbs. Google "carrot pineapple muffins" for recipes. They were delicious. I'm sure if you swapped in low-carb flour you could adapt the GF recipes.
 
Hi how about full thick cream, straight from the fridge ? Or from the freezer ' ice ' cream ! simple
 
I've had some delicious courgette cake in the past, most recently my birthday cake, but never made it myself. I now use xylytol as sweetener, I found stevia sometimes has a bitter aftertaste if you use too much. I wonder if this was the cause of the aftertaste.
 
Courgette & mint soup (or corriander) is a great one to put in the freezer. All you need is to saute chopped onion, courgettes in some oil, add stock (veg or chicken bouillon) and herb of choice fresh mint or fresh corriander and whizz it up.
 
Goonergal said:
This cake is good.

View attachment 34985
Click to expand...

I think there may be an error in the zucchini/lemon cake carb calculation. Everywhere I've looked, there are 4g of carbs for each teaspoon (4g) of erythritol which equals 1g of carb per 1g of weight, so the 250g called for in this recipe must be equal to 250g of carbs, not 25? Additionally, there are net carbs in zucchini, almond flour, etc.
 
I am pretty sure that the carb count on the muffin recipe (#10) above is reasonably accurate as I added up all the carbs in all of the ingredients on the list and rounded upwards. They are small, tasty and filling. I haven't checked out the cake recipe and probably won't as I am trying to avoid sweets in general... BTW thanks for all the other recipes!
 
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