Oven Baking Tip

🍞🌡️🍪‼️ Baking Tip  🍞🌡️🍪‼️

Did you know???  If you have the type of oven that beeps letting you know it's done pre-heating (let's say you set it to 350°), chances are VERY good it's not actually up to 350° yet when it beeps. In fact, I've NEVER had an oven that has been. My current oven is only at about 300° when it beeps...it needs another 20 minutes to get up to 350°. 

This is why using an oven thermometer is so important. A lot of people think they're not "bakers" because their baked goods come out gooey or they fall/collapse. But chances are good you're actually just under-baking them due to your oven temp.  You don't notice this when cooking because you simply let it go longer until it's done or browned. But baking is science/chemistry and oven temp is crucial to making that science work.

Also, if your oven temp is "off", did you know it can be calibrated to be correct?  Just Google how to calibrate your make/model oven and you can easily adjust it!

Oven thermometers are inexpensive... I have a double-oven and have one in each.

BBQ Beef Cups

These are a variation of the sausage muffins I make using my "corn" dog batter. 

Brown 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef and season with your favorite low carb BBQ spices.  Cook until just cooked through because it will bake in the oven also.

While the beef is browning, I make a double batch of my "corn" dog recipe. This will make about 30 BBQ cups.

When the ground beef is done, turn off the heat and add your favorite low carb BBQ sauce. I use a mix of Walden Farms and G. Hughes.

Line muffin tins with paper liners (parchment is my favorite) and fill each about 1/3 of the way with batter.  Then top with the BBQ ground beef.  Push the meat down into the cup.

Bake in a 400° preheated oven for about 22 minutes.  Let cool a bit (the liner will come off better).  I drizzle a little more G. Hughes BBQ sauce on top. Store leftovers in the fridge.

Grilled SmartBun Sandwich

Ok, I admittedly make odd sandwiches from time to time, but man, this one was good!  And I FINALLY figured out how to grill a SmartBun without burning it!  You turn it inside out.  Hmm, does that make sense?  So the sides that would normally be on the outside were facing in.  It grilled beautifully! 

Fry a breakfast sausage patty and fry an egg - set aside.  I toasted mine in bacon grease or you could use butter. While the bottom piece was toasting I added Walden Farms apple jelly, cheese, turkey, my sausage patty, the egg, a little more apple jelly, and then the top bun. By now the bottom should be golden brown (but peek to check), carefully flip your sandwich over and let the top brown. 

It's a little messy and oozy, but so gosh darn good.  Lots of protein and practically 0 net carbs. 😍

Easy Sausage Muffins

These muffins were super fast and easy.  I browned 2 lbs of breakfast sausage.  While that was browning, I mixed up 2 batches of my "corn"dog batter recipe.  After the sausage was browned, I added it to the batter, and mixed to combine.

Fill lined muffins tins - I got 30 muffins.  Bake in a 375° preheated muffin for 20 minutes.

I served with some sugar-free pancake syrup for dipping and a salad.

And now we have leftovers for lunch and dinner.  These would be great for fast breakfasts or packed in kids lunches.

Sloppy Joes & Cold Sides

I made a big batch of cole slaw and carrot "apple" salad today to last several days.  Threw together some Sloppy Joes on Smartbuns and dinner was done.

About 8 nets carbs.

Use the search feature on the right side of the blog to find all of these recipes.

Breakfast Saved with 90-second Bread

Every Sunday my husband makes open faced egg sandwiches.  I didn't get around to making my Rustic Faux-Wheat Bread yesterday and we're completely out (GASP!).  So, I used my '90 second cake' recipe and reduced the vanilla and sweetener so it would be more bread-like.  Breakfast was saved!

The kid's breakfast was the bread (each has half), 2 eggs, bacon, no sugar added ketchup, blueberries with coconut cream, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and 2 oz veggie juice...

I'm not much of a breakfast person.  I fast through breakfast during the week, but eat it on the weekends just for the family time.  I had my 90-second bread split... 1 egg, bacon and hot sauce on one side.  Butter and sugar-free orange marmalade on the other.  And coffee.

Use the search feature on the right side of the blog... Search "90 second" for the cake/bread recipe.

Dairy-Free Oopsie Rolls

You may also know this bread as Oopsie Bread or Cloud Bread.  It's a simple, spongy bread with only 3 ingredients.  The original version uses cream cheese, so today I tried swapping the cream cheese with coconut cream (same amount) and viola... dairy-free Oopsie Rolls!

I like making them in a hamburger bun pan to keep their shape.

After you bake, turn the oven off and let them sit in the oven for a bit so they don't deflate.  But, if you pull them out right away they'll deflate which I use to my advantage to make little bread "cups".  I topped mine with tuna salad...

But the kids wanted sugar-free jelly on theirs, which kind of looked like a danish.  In fact, if I added sweetener to the bread and drizzled with icing, these would be very danish-like..

Here's a link to my original Oopsie Roll post:

https://happyhealthythriving.blogspot.com/2017/02/oopsies-rolls-aka-cloud-bread.html?m=1

Cream Cheese Zucchini Bread

This bread is very moist - almost a cross between bread and a cake, so we eat it with a fork. The kids have been devouring this every day and keep asking for more.