High Fiber/’Low-Carb’ Bread

High Fiber/’Low-Carb’ Bread

First – this will be a bit longwinded for me – sorry, but need to cover the bases.

Well, the high fiber is right; the ‘low-carb’ part is perhaps a bit of an obfuscation – in counting carb circles high fiber is considered to off-set some of the carbs and this bread does have fewer carbs than probably anything you can buy store-wise.

First: Baking bread is NOT a science, it is more of an art. So dispense with the notion that everything has to be measured precisely and handled ‘just so’ for it to work. Making bread is actually quite flexible, you just need to have a feel for what you’re putting in and what it does once it’s in there. I can’t cover all of that here, but I’ll try to give you some basics. [My wife and kids will tell you I don’t measure anything when it comes to bread. I just dump stuff in, but then I have lots of experience and a good sense of what I’m doing.]

Here are the fundamental ingredients you will need for almost any yeast bread (Note, ‘almost’ you can delete some of these and add lots of things and still have a successful bread, but those are more specialty things).

Wheat Flour – white, whole wheat, spelt, high-gluten – something with gluten
Salt
Oil/butter (fat)
Yeast – dried active granular is preferred, but sour-dough and other types can be used
Warm Water (liquid)
Sweetener – I almost exclusively use honey, but there are lots of options and ‘sweet is always optional.

That’s it. Dump relevant quantities together, push it around a lot, let it rise, push it around again, let it rise, bake. Voila!

Now to make this much more complex and succeed with the High Fiber/’Low-Carb’ premise we’re going to get a lot more specific.

Things you can add:

Flours: wheat (white, whole wheat), spelt, buckwheat, rye, oat, soy, and…?
Other fiber ingredients: wheat germ, wheat bran, oat bran, rolled oats, flax seed or flax meal (better), millet meal, and…?

There are other things, but these are most readily available at super-markets or specialty stores (e.g. Whole Foods).

What you need to know:

White flour is considered BAD – empty carbs with little fiber

Most wheat flours have similar levels of carbs/cup but the ‘whole grain’ flours have lots more fiber than white thus off-setting the carbs somewhat
Soy flour has 8 gm carb/quarter cup, versus 19-21 for other flours – it’s the low-carb gem of the bunch, but lots of people don’t like the flavor – use sparing as mentioned below

High-gluten flour has lower carbs than white and can help with the rise of breads without white flour

Fiber ingredients increase the fiber and help balance out the carbs.
IMPORTANT: you can try lots of things, but I recommend NOT using more ‘fiber-type’ ingredients than your flour. You can balance it anyway you like otherwise. Probably 2/3 flour to 1/3 fiber is a good rule of thumb. I have made really high-fiber crackers, but that’s another animal all together. For bread you don’t want it too heavy.

Making a High Fiber/’Low-Carb’ bread:

Decide whether you want any white flour or not. None is best, but then I recommend a bit (1-3 tablespoons) of high-gluten flour to help the rise.
Choose a wheat flour – whole wheat is standard and easily available. I also use spelt flour (a type of wheat, sort-of) available at specialty markets – get the whole-grain variety, it also comes in ‘white’. It has a nutty wheat flavor, very nice. NOTE: the majority of your flour should be wheat. If you want to add other flours – oat, soy, rye, etc. my rule of thumb is a quarter to a third cup max per loaf (see recipe below).

Fibers: same deal as the other flours – quarter of a cup goes a long way and keep with the maxim of more flour than fiber additions.

Here’s a basic recipe. Feel free to substitute at will based on the recommendations above:

Wholewheat fiber bread: makes tow loaves
Four cups whole wheat flour (or spelt)
2 Tabls high-gluten flour
½ cup rye flour

1/3 or ½ cup soy flour – (NOTE: you probably don’t want to add lots of soy flour to a bread, a little helps with the carb count, but it also can have a marked affect (not necessarily pleasant) if it overpowers the wheat. This much works fine).

¼ cup oat bran
¼ cup wheat bran
¼ cup flax meal – great for you!

Approx 1 and 3/4 cups luke-warm water (hot will kill the yeasties) NOTE: use of liquid can change based on the day – a humid day like the day I am writing this can change the amount by as much as a ¼ cup!!!

½ cup of honey (any type will do) – I like whole-grain breads sweet. Lessen if you don’t or add more if you feel like it. Just remember it changes the liquid amount if you add less or more.

One package active dry yeast (fast or regular, whatever tweaks you)

1 tabls salt

½ cup oil – I highly recommend Canola oil – one of the GOOD oils

Dump it all in a bowl, or your bread maker and set on ‘dough’. NOTE: I highly recommend that you do NOT use a bread maker for baking. I never use my baking setting. Especially for whole grain breads which take longer to rise, generally. If kneading, add enough liquid to make it easy to knead without being really sticky. Knead for 10-15 minutes.

Important for bread maker: check in on it every few minutes while it is kneading. You will have to judge the moisture level and texture. In a bread maker I like the texture to be a bit wet, sticky wet (which would be more difficult kneading by hand). If it looks at all dry, it is, add some more warm water. I use a bread maker most of the time and let the dough setting run its course AND THEN SOME. Even with the high-gluten flour whole grain breads tend to take awhile to rise – two hours isn’t unusual. Let it rise until doubled or more.

If doing by hand after kneading place in lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean towel.

Hint: find a warm place to rise – inside a car in the late spring-early fall with the sun on it is ideal. Today many ovens have a bread-rising function.

After first rise: Punch down (you can just start the dough setting again and let it knead for ten minutes). If using the knead/bowl method, punch down with your fist and knead again for 5-10 minutes.

Place in two greased/oiled bread pans. Rise again in a warm place until more than doubled (Use your best judgment). Preheat oven to 325-350 (ovens vary!). Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Take out of oven. After a couple of minutes slide out of pans onto a cooling rack. Cool 5-10 minutes. Enjoy the first slices hot with butter!

If it doesn’t rise: if you did everything right, it should, but sometimes the yeasties are just not cooperating. You can try to salvage (I have done this enough times) by adding some more yeast and a bit of water. Mix it up REALLY well again, and let it rise again. Another alternative is to let it rise overnight at room temperature. Sometimes it just takes the little guys awhile to get going.

P.S. I almost forgot the nuts and fruit: other additions which also help the 'carb' level of this type of bread is to add a 1/2 cup of nuts/seeds (chopped almonds, walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc.) and/or dried fruits (raisins, cran-raisins, dried blueberries, etc.) YUM!Just add to the basic recipe while kneading or after the first rise.

Feel free to ask questions.

Best,
Joe Koob