Thursday seems to be the day to refresh some of Nora’s foods, and tonight I am baking. I have had a lot of success with some low-carb recipes so far. They replace regular flour with nut meals to reduce the carbs and increase the protein and fat (Bob’s Red Mill makes all kinds of nut flours). Coconut flour is awesome because it has a light texture, nice flavor, very high fiber, and therefore low net carbs. Nut flours taste great compared to wheat flours, so you don’t miss the sugar so much. I do not add any no-carb/artificial sweeteners. Using tasty whole foods tends to result in a tasty muffin.
Keto-Pumpkin Mini-Muffins
Nora scarfed down this muffin (actually, she also ate most of the paper trying to eat the crumbs off.) Anders deemed it “too nutty.” I thought it was nice, but very soft. It’s not grainy at all.
I have had to further adapt some low-carb recipes because they are written for adults. Even on a low-carb diet, adults get far more than 10 carbs per day. One easy fix is to cut the portion size. Tonight I’m making mini-muffins for the first time.
Low-carb baking also tends to be gluten-free, but the converse is not necessarily true. Lots of gluten-free baking mixes are very high in carbs because they use things like tapioca. So feel free to use these for a gluten-free diet, but remember to check the fat and calories if you are concerned about portion sizes.
Here’s the recipe I made tonight. I don’t remember where I first found it (maybe on a keto/MAD diet website), but I have had to tinker with it to get it right.
Keto-Pumpkin Mini-Muffins (makes 24-25)
Keto-Pumpkin Mini-Muffins (recipe analysis from caloriecount.com). Note that net carbs = 0.9 (calculate total carbs minus fiber).
3 eggs
1/4 c melted butter
1/2 c pumpkin puree
1/4 c Plain Traditional Greek Yogurt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 c Hazelnut Flour (or Almond Flour)
2.5 T Coconut Flour
up to 2 T water
Beat eggs well with electric mixer. Add butter, pumpkin, yogurt, cinnamon, vanilla.
Sift together baking powder and nut flours. Let stand for coconut flour to absorb liquids. Add water a bit at a time for appropriate consistency.
Ladle about 4 teaspoons of batter into each lined mini-muffin tin and bake at 350, ~ 15-20 min.
——————————
When topped with 1/2 T of Double-cream-cheese (equal parts Primrose Cream Cheese and Double Devonshire Cream), nutrition breakdown:
Net carbs: 1.15 g
Protein: 1.45 g
Fat: 6.75
Ratio: 2.6:1
Perfect with a cup of tea and cream!
I’ve been personally using a ketogenic diet to help achieve fitness goals for sometime now. However, I’m also an engineer and have spent a lot of time researching the effect of this type of diet on overall health. I’ve known how effective a ketogenic diet can be in treating epilepsy, but reading through you’re site and seeing the success you’ve had with your daughter is really encouraging. I really hope your story can help to raise awareness about this type of treatment for people in similar situations.
I found your site while looking for some new recipes to add to my repertoire since I have yet to really delve in the baking world of keto. I haven’t tried any nut flours yet, but I have to say you’re pumpkin muffins look delicious and I’m definitely going to add them to my list of recipes to try.
I really enjoy a lot of the baked recipes too, although I try to leave them for Nora! You are probably not using a diet that is as extreme as Nora’s, and a lot of the baked goods are a lower ratio (more around 2:1), so you can use them as-is or leave out a little bit of the fat for your purposes. These recipes are all low-carb and high-flavor!
It just says “1/2 pumpkin puree”. Is it supposed to be 1/2 cup?
Yes, 1/2 cup. I just updated the recipe too. Thanks for catching that.
Just found your website tonight while searching the internet for more MAD/Keto recipe ideas. We just started my 20-month old son on the MAD diet last week in an attempt to help subdue his epilepsy (infantile spasms). I’m hopeful about the diet and inspired to find other children and families, like Nora and yours, who are farther along on this road than we are. I’ll be baking the pumpkin muffins tomorrow!
We wish you the best Dana! As I understand it, keto is the best treatment for infantile spasms. I really hope it helps your son.
The older recipes on our blog were written for MAD, and they are keto farther on. If you need translation for grams to conventional measurements, please let me know. I try to include the ratio on each recipe as a guide for how it will with for either version of diet therapy.
Can’t thank you enough for your recipes and the very personal way you share Nora’s story. We started our daughter on MAD almost 3 weeks ago and are already seeing results. Due to the refractory epilepsy, she takes over 20 pills a day (5 different meds), has a VNS (implanted 9/12) and still the seizures continued. When the frequency and severity increased, 2 weeks after VNS, I asked our neuro about MAD or Ketogenic diet. He was very receptive and encouraged us to give it a try. He also added Onfi to her pill regimen. So, whether it’s Onfi or the diet (at this point I don’t care), Chey made it thru her first week of school since the year began after only 2 weeks on the diet/Onfi.
Sorry, I got side-tracked, my question is about the pumpkin puree. Is that just a canned pumpkin puree?
Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Mindi,
I’m so glad to hear that the diet is helping. It is such a relief. Now that we seem to be on the other side and things are going well, I have so much hope for other families and kids too.
I calculated this recipe using plain canned pumpkin puree. Don’t use something like “pumpkin pie” mix. If you look at the ingredients, it is probably just pumpkin and water, no added sugars or anything else.
Good luck and stay in touch. If you are seeing results but not seizure freedom, talk about going to a higher ratio. That’s what we did with Nora, and you will see that later I post recipes in grams instead of common measures. Go ahead and get a kitchen gram scale now. They aren’t terribly expensive and can be useful with MAD too. As her seizures get better, I would also suggest pressing the doctor about reducing some of the meds. Many families say that their kids don’t make the final strides in improvement until they get off of several of the meds. They will wean slowly, so it’s a path you want to start walking sooner rather than later.
Best,
Christy
Thanks Christy. Your response was the nudge I needed to go ahead and get a scale. It’s ordered and will arrive before the weekend just in time for my “prep day”. I had already purchased The Keto Cookbook so it will definitely get lots of use. Take care and again thank you for kindness.
Excellent! I discovered early that I was a gram-scale-kinda-mama. You kind of have to be to really get into the diet 🙂
I love the keto cookbook. You and your girl can snuggle up and look at all of the pretty pictures. That sure helped Nora like the diet, to see everything she “gets” to have!
How do u make the puree or where can I find it
You can find canned pumpkin puree in a store, especially this time of year! Just make sure that it is pure pumpkin (look at the ingredients). Possibly only water added. You do NOT want canned pumpkin pie mix. Here is an example, which says “Ingredients: Certified Organic Pumpkin” http://www.farmersmarketfoods.com/products/organic-pumpkin/
It’s yummy and easy to make your own. Get a cooking pumpkin (not carving) or a squash. Poke holes with a sharp knife, penetrating as deeply as you can without hurting yourself! You will want holes all around.
Preheat the oven to 300. Put the poked pumpkin on a cooking sheet, with tinfoil underneath to make clean up easier. Cook it in the oven for 1-2 hours, depending on size, until you can easily stick a fork in it.
Remove from oven and let it cool. Then it is easy to cut in half, scrape out the seeds and guts, and remove the skin. Take the cooked flesh and puree it in a food processor to get it really smooth (might have to add a touch of water if the flesh is very thick). If you don’t have a food processor you could probably mash it with a potato masher, but you won’t get a super smooth consistency.
When I googled it to find you a recipe, all of them said to seed and peel it first. But I hate doing that. I feel like I’m going to slash myself with a big knife and a big solid pumpkin. I like this cook-first method. I think it saves a lot of time and danger. So get a smallish pumpkin that you can set right in the oven on the cooking sheet.