Low Carb Keto Rosemary Crackers with no egg in sight!
By now you will know that my love for bread is always simmering in the background. Although I have learned to do without, there are times when bread is a must. For me at least. Whether I need something to accompany a dip or to make a sandwich, cucumber slices just won’t cut it. Yes you can make cucumber fingers to dip in whatever, but that’s neither filling nor satisfying enough for me.
Thinking it can’t be that difficult to make, I searched the internet for inspiration, but all the ketogenic bread recipes I found always seemed to involve eggs. Not that I have anything against eggs, but eggy flavoured bread isn’t my cup of tea.
As for sandwiches, I prefer bread that doesn’t flop when you pick it up and doesn’t smell or taste like an omelette.
With no recipe to follow, I had a go at mixing various low carb flours and seeds, naively hoping that I could make a dough in the traditional way and just replace the usual strong grain flour and yeast with something more healthy that contained minimal carbs. Nope! What was I thinking? Without gluten to bind and stretch fibres, every attempt ended in disaster. The dough didn’t rise at all despite the inclusion of a leavening agent and my creations were just too dry to swallow and ended up in the bin!
Frustrated about pursuing what seemed to be impossible (…I haven’t given up just yet!) I then decided to attempt flatbread. Again, I had many awful results, primarily because I was insisting on using coconut flour, which can turn most foods to cardboard unless hundreds of eggs are used in the mix.
After too many failures to count, I put the bread idea on hold (for the time being…) and decided to try my hand at crackers instead. And so my low carb keto rosemary crackers were born!
Since then, I have made several variations, just playing with different ingredients to see what works and what doesn’t. This latest cracker recipe involves a variety of super ingredients, all very low carb and extremely healthy.
My current low-carb-full-of-goodness best friend is lupin flour. You can find it in Italy very easily (and cheaply), but it’s a little more difficult in the UK. A cautionary word: before you try lupin flour, be aware that it can cause an allergic reaction in those who have an existing peanut allergy.
My other best friend is hemp flour, but I’ve used very little in this recipe as I didn’t want a strong earthy flavoured bread. The usual suspects are all included: chia seeds, flaxseed meal and coconut flour, plus some sunflower seeds and organic gluten-free oats included for good measure. Water and extra virgin olive oil provide the wetness that binds all the dry ingredients. No eggs! Yippee!!!!!
My low carb keto rosemary crackers are just 29g of carbs for the whole batch!
I tend to cook a fairly sizable batch that will last for several days. However, unless you manage to spread the dough very, very, very thinly onto your baking tray, the crackers will lose their initial oven crunchiness once they have cooled down completely. I actually like them both in their soft-ish state, or toasted to bring back the crispiness. If you want to re-crisp them, just pop them under a medium grill for a few minutes, or in a halogen oven on the higher rack at 220º-240ºC for 2-3 minutes as I do – quicker and more energy efficient – I use my halogen oven every day (for U.S. option, click HERE).
Enjoy!
- Yield: 35-40 small squares
- Serving: WHOLE BATCH
- Calories: 1163
- Fat: 71g
- Net Carbs: 28
- Protein: 58g
- 50g organic raw dark chia seeds (U.S. option HERE)
- 30g organic sunflower seeds
- 20g fine coconut flour (U.S. option HERE)
- 10g organic ground flaxseed (U.S. option HERE)
- 10g organic raw hemp flour (U.S.option HERE)
- 15g organic gluten-free oat bran (U.S. option HERE)
- 75g organic lupin flour (U.S. option HERE) (world-wide delivery option HERE - use code QUEENKETO5 for discount at checkout)
- ½ teaspoon fine himalayan pink salt (U.S. option HERE)
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
- 150g water
- 30g extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) (U.S. option HERE)
- weigh all dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well with a fork.
- add EVOO and water and mix by hand until a dough is formed, then set aside for 5 minutes.
- pre-heat oven to 180°C.
- transfer the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper and flatten by hand a little.
- place another sheet of parchment paper on top and spread out the dough using a rolling pin, until very flat and of uniform height.
- peel off the top sheet of parchment paper, place a fresh sheet on top and flip over.
- peel away the top sheet and slide onto a baking tray.
- using a pizza wheel, cut horizontal and vertical lines to form squares to your desired size.
- bake for 25 min or until the edges start to brown.
- turn oven off and open the door, but leave the crackers in situ to dry out some more.
- after about 10 minutes, remove the crackers from the oven and snap each square.
- serve immediately, or allow to cool and store in an airtight container.
Metric kitchen scales are an inexpensive yet invaluable gadget to enable accurate measurement of ingredients. Store them upright in a cupboard or over your worktop and they'll only take up a tiny bit of space. For this recipe I used Precision Scales. Click HERE for the ones I use in the UK. For U.S. option click HERE.
Wow, your recipes are amazing. I’m doing low carb but I’m vegan so it has been interesting discovering how to go about it. A few alterations to the recipes you have shared will do the trick! You should consider publishing an Ebook on amazon. xox
Hi Renae! Thank you for your lovely comments 🙂 . You’re doing low carb AND you’re vegan? Wow! That’s amazing. I would love to be able to do that. I’m writing a Keto recipe book right now…hoping it will be ready by Dec/Jan. Thank you again. x