We’ve been working with variations of this dough for nearly two years and have made countless batches of bread loaves, buns, rolls, pizzas, and more. Based on our experimental Homemade Bread Recipe, here you’ll find a simplified outline for the dough we use.
Note: This is a yeast-risen, gluten based bread. If you’re sensitive to gluten or yeast, please check out our huge list of low carb and sugar free bread alternatives here.
Keto Dough
Ingredients
Yeast
- 1.25 – 1.5 cups Warm Water between 105 and 110°F
(more water = softer texture but stickier dough) - 1 tbsp Active Dry Yeast
- 1 tbsp Inulin Powder (or 2 tsp Honey or Maple Syrup, see notes)
Wet
- 2 Large eggs
- 2-3 tbsp Unsalted Butter (melted but not boiling hot)
Dry
- 1 cup Vital Wheat Gluten
- 1/2 cup Oat Fiber
- 1/2 cup Brown or Golden Flaxseed Meal
- 1 tbsp Powdered Erythritol or equivalent in your preferred sweetener
- 1 tsp Fine Pink Salt or Fine Sea Salt
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 335° f and thoroughly grease pan (we use some of the melted butter and brush every nook). If you haven’t already, melt your butter and set aside.
2. Bloom the yeast: combine warm water, yeast, and inulin. Give it a quick stir, cover with a cloth, and set aside in a warm/humid area for about 5-7 minutes, or until frothy. We set this on our preheating stove; you can also use a microwave with the light on.
Tip: If it doesn’t get frothy on top, you might need to try again with fresh yeast.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients: Vital Wheat Gluten, Oat Fiber, Flaxseed, Sweetener, Salt (and any other seasonings or herbs you’d like to add).
4. Once the yeast mix looks frothy, gently combine the rest of the wet ingredients with the yeast mix: Eggs and Melted Butter.
5. Add all of the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and give it a good stir with a fork or hard spatula until it starts to look like a lumpy, sticky dough.
6. Using the dough hook with a stand mixer, knead your dough on a low setting for about 5 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when it starts to turn into a giant ball, easily pulls away from the edges, and looks stretchy rather than lumpy. If it’s too wet, kneading will take longer – you can try sprinkling 1-2 tsp of oat fiber until the dough starts to come together.
Note: Alternatively, you can pour the lumpy dough into a food processor and VERY CAREFULLY pulse (and scrape the edges every few pulses) for about 3 minutes, until the dough starts to ball and twine around the center. DO NOT let the dough twine up and down into your machine or it WILL BREAK.
You can also go old school and knead the dough by hand until it barely sticks to your hands anymore and stretches an inch or two without breaking. We prefer a stand mixer, but we’ve also heard rumors you can use a bread machine for kneading.
7. Plop the kneaded dough onto a silicone mat or parchment paper and divide then roll into your desired shapes. Dough will be sticky, we recommend using a silicone spatula or something similar to divide and hands for rolling smaller shapes. Roll until it no longer sticks to your fingers. For pizzas, we recommend placing the dough between a mat and parchment paper so you can roll it out more easily. Check here for more Pizza tips.
8. Place the dough into your greased pan.
9. Cover the dough with a cloth and place in a humid area to rise for 1 hour. Like the yeast, we use the stovetop near the oven’s vent while it’s heating. You could also place it in a NON-preheating oven, with the oven light on, or a microwave.
Tip: For a shinier crust you can brush the dough with an egg wash or butter before baking. Rather than baking with a wash, sometimes I like to brush my fully baked bread with melted butter when it’s hot out of the oven then sprinkle it with some sea salt.
10. Bake in an oven preheated to 335° f for 35 minutes on the middle rack. If you’re unsure it’s fully baked, stick a long toothpick/skewer through the side, toward the middle and if it doesn’t come out clean, bake for another 3-5 minutes.
Note: Bake times will vary if you choose to do buns or other, smaller/flatter shapes – for these, check at 20-30 minutes and add time as needed. For example, hot dog buns and pizzas usually bake in about 20 minutes.
11. Carefully remove bread from the pan and let it cool on a rack for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Store in a cool, dry place in an airtight container for up to 5 days. You can also store in the freezer for a month or two. Slices, buns, and rolls thaw very quickly (or can be toasted from frozen) but can also be defrosted in the microwave on a low setting.
Bread Loaf: 16 slices | Serving: 1 slice | Net Carbs: 1.3g (Total Carbs: 3.3) | Calories: 70
XL Rolls: 8 rolls | Serving: 1 roll | Net Carbs: 2.6g (Total Carbs: 6.5) | Calories: 141
Hot Dog Buns: 16 buns | Serving: 1 bun | Net Carbs: 1.3g (Total Carbs: 3.3) | Calories: 70
Disclaimer: Based on using 2tbsp butter. Info provided here by entering the ingredients used into Carb Manager. These numbers can change based on the ingredients/brands/etc. you choose to use.
Recipe Notes
What brands do we like?
We’ve tried quite a few different brands and these are our favorites for this recipe in terms of quality and consistency:
- Inulin Powder – Micro Ingredients
- Vital Wheat Gluten – Anthony’s Goods
- Oat Fiber – LifeSource Foods
- Finely Ground Flaxseed – Beveri (golden) or Bob’s Red Mill (in-store)
- Powdered Sweetener – Swerve
- Butter – Kerry Gold Unsalted
What’s with the high carb honey or syrup?
The yeast will feed on whatever sugar you use to emit a gas that gives your dough rise and will leave behind trace amounts to no carbs. If you don’t want to risk it with real sugar like honey or syrup and you have no issues with nightshades, just use inulin – it’s pure fiber with zero net carbs and is just as effective.
Alternatively, you can try out the newish zero carb sweetener called Allulose to proof the yeast. While it’s known to mimic sugar pretty well, it’s also known to cause some bloating/discomfort for some folks who are sensitive to whichever plant the manufacturer derived it from (corn in some cases). We haven’t noticed any discomfort but we also aren’t baking with it at the moment.
If you try this out, you might also try to reduce the recipe’s main sweetener as allulose may have a lingering sweetness from the yeast mixture.
Homemade Noms by Cate 