The Fathead Dough Project: Keto Whomp Orange Rolls

I will try not to make you scroll down too far to get to the recipe.   Many blogs today are hard to work with because they are choked with ads, videos, and other clickbait while the actual recipe sits, far, far, FAR down the page. 

However, I did want to share some thoughts about why this recipe is important to me.   If you just want to scroll down I will totally understand.

Since my last post, I have, with some reluctance, crawled back onto the Keto wagon for the sake of my blood sugar.   

Part of my struggle when I did Atkins years ago was being unable to shake the feeling of different foods having moral value and, as a "bad" person who ate "bad" food, low carb felt like food jail no matter how I sliced it.  Also, low carb baked goods made with soy flour always tasted strongly of "BEANS" to my palate.   It became a stress reliever to just say, "Fuck it, I'm going over the wall, I'm sick of feeling like a criminal / freak!"   before grabbing some comfort carb or other, laden with stuff my stomach hated sooner or later, but also laden with warm memories of good tastes.

Prominent among these memories is the "orange sweet roll" / "orange Danish" dough which comes in a can.  I learned during a Facebook discussion that some people call the canned dough "whomp biscuits" or "whomp orange rolls", because the instructions on the can used to be to open the can by striking it on the counter ("WHOMP!").    These rolls weren't always available at the store when I was growing up, so they were a more rare treat.   After we grew up, my sisters and I would pick up a can for family breakfasts during holiday gatherings.   I still enjoy the way they taste hot out of the oven.

I was cautiously optimistic after I learned about the "fathead dough" people have developed for keto baked goods like pizza crust, bagels and breadsticks.   After looking up "keto cinnamon rolls" I found a recipe on the Sugar Free Londoner blog which looked adaptable in the direction of "orange rolls".  My glaze for the top turned out to be more like a syrup, not a frosting, but it matches the dough pretty well.

KETO WHOMP ORANGE ROLLS

Dough:

1 1/2 cups shredded low moisture whole milk mozzarella ("part-skim" will have more carbs)

3/4 cup almond flour (the finer the better)

2 Tbsp. cream cheese (again, low fat will have more carbs)

1 egg

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. dried orange zest

1/2 tsp. orange extract


Cinnamon filling:

1-2 Tbsp. water

2 Tbsp. (or equivalent;  they don't all measure cup for cup.   I used a Stevia/erithrotol blend)

 2 tsp. cinnamon


Orange syrup:

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. (or equivalent) sugar free sweetener

1/2 tsp.  orange zest

1 tsp.  pure orange extract


Heat oven to 375.

I mixed the syrup first, then the cinnamon filling, to give the ingredients time to blend.  My cinnamon filling used the 2 Tbsp. of water the original recipe called for, and came out very watery, whereas the filling in the recipe picture looked more like a slurry or paste.   Maybe start with 1 Tbsp. water and see what your filling does.

To make the dough, melt the cream cheese and grated mozzarella over low heat until melted but not bubbling.   I used a pot on the stove, you can also use a bowl in the microwave, mixing every 30 seconds.   Add the egg and mix until blended.   Stir the baking powder into the almond flour to distribute it, then add the flour mixture to the cheeses and egg.   Add the orange extract and mix thoroughly.   Dough will be soft, stretchy and warm.

Divide dough into 6 parts.   Stretch each part out into strips,  about 7 inches by 2 inches.   Spread / spoon cinnamon filling onto each strip.  Roll up strips and cut each rollup in half to make 12 small spirals.   Place spirals onto baking paper or silicon mat on a baking sheet.   Bake at 375 until browned, around 20 minutes.   Drizzle syrup onto rolls after they come out of the oven.

Enjoy!

Americana: The Betty Crocker Recipe Cards Edition

Occasionally, I will revisit digitized facsimiles of the Betty Crocker recipe cards we used to have when I was a tween / adolescent.

https://www.scribd.com/lists/3417967/Betty-Crocker-Recipe-Card-Library

The collection is chimaerical, in that nearly every cake recipe will start with "one box of our Devil's Food / Yellow / White cake mix...", repeat for any food product BC was making in the early 1970's. However, some scratch recipes were provided, and indeed, the "Favorite Muffins" recipe from the "Come For Coffee" section was the first quick bread I learned how to bake. Also the recipe on which I learned how many things can go wrong with muffins. To this day, I cannot bake anything without a recipe directly in front of me to make sure I'm not adding too much oil or stirring the wrong amount of time.

To be sure, there are some food horrors left over from the kind of "Nope" articles that make the rounds on social media. The savory gelatin and cans of cream-of-mushroom/chicken/celery soup were strong.

Sometimes I wonder who they thought they were marketing to, since the recipes calling for canned soup / mushrooms / fruit mingle willy-nilly with the expectation that our homemaker might also want to make a chocolate souffle, Danish aebleskiver (complete with the aebleskiver pan), or know what Fontina cheese is (I just found out what Fontina was last year). There are entertaining hints on the back of the party recipes--the "Children's Parties" cards are a fun read, suggesting themes like a hobo party (with dinner cooked in coffee cans), a Backwards Party, or an ice cream social.

The entire collection has been digitized on the Scribd website by the incredibly thorough and thoughtful "Kenneth", to whom I am indebted for this reminder of some happy childhood memories. I actually have cooked / attempted a few recipes from the collection over the years with varying degrees of success (I lost my enthusiasm for fried cornmeal mush after an unkind spatter burn where I couldn't remove the clinging mush fast enough), but always with a kind of pleasure. I felt like I was connecting to something lots of other people were trying at roughly the same time.

Happy cooking and happy eating 8)