Recipe Development: 23 Batches of Low-Calorie, High-Protein Oat Fiber Muffins

A few months ago, I decided to try eating more protein to help with building muscle.

To avoid significantly increasing my total calories, I first tried just adding protein powder to my breakfast and lunch shakes. That got me the protein I wanted, but it diluted the flavor of the shakes, which I didn’t like.

Next, I tried searching around for a solid low-calorie, high-protein food. Not finding anything, I decided to make my own (still looking, so please comment if you have any suggestions). I started off with a recipe for oat-fiber bread from The Fruit of Her Hands. The oat-fiber, egg white, and glucomannan combination gave me the bulk and texture I wanted with almost no calories.

INITIAL ADAPTATION

To add protein, I substituted whey protein isolate for 36% of the oat-fiber and dropped the cooking time to 18 min. I also swapped cinnamon and liquid sucralose for the onion and garlic powder to make a slightly sweet instead of savory version.

The resulting muffins tasted decent, but the texture was always either a bit too dry or (if I lowered the cooking time) the top center of the muffin was undercooked.

To fix these problems, I tried:

• Increasing cooking time (went from 14 to 19 min. and the muffins went from underdone in the center to too dry, with no happy medium.
• Removed water (much drier).

Other observations:

• The tops of the muffins deflate when they cool. Not a big deal to me, but seemed like a symptom of the texture problem.
• The batter was extremely thin and bubbled more vigorously than a normal muffin batter. Again, not a problem in-and-of-itself, but it made the recipe more time sensitive and made me think something was not quite right.

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Round 1: Finding the right ingredients

At this point, I decided to ask for advice on r/ketorecipes. From that post, I got a number of good suggestions, all in the vein of adding an ingredient that either better retains moisture (allulose, gelatin) or one that would coat the oat-fiber to mitigate drying (oil, egg yolk). From these ideas I tried the following experiments:

• All: For all experiments, I removed the water from the recipe, as that made the muffins drier and (I hoped) would make it easier to taste the difference made by the substitutions. I also wanted to increase the density of the muffins.
• Replaced liquid sucralose with 6 tsp. allulose mixed with dry ingredients (suggested by u/NSGod as allulose should retain water and is bulkier)
  • Batter: No change in consistency or taste
  • Deflation: No change
  • Moisture & texture: Perceptibly softer and more moist, but still too dry. Was slightly undercooked in the center of the top.
  • Taste: No change
• Added two packets of knox gelatin mixed with dry ingredients (suggested by u/Samr1221 to retain water)
  • Batter: Much thicker, similar to a quick-bread batter
  • Deflation: Almost none
  • Moisture & texture: Even softer and more moist than allulose, but still a bit drier than I’d like. Top was less dry than the bottom.
  • Taste: No change
• Added 1 tbsp. commercial ice cream stabilizer mixed with dry ingredients. Same concept as gelatin, but it’s a mix of different thickeners and moisture absorbers, so I thought it’d be interesting to compare.
  • Batter: Much thicker, similar to a quick-bread batter
  • Deflation: None
  • Moisture & texture: Similar moisture to gelatin, but denser and a bit tougher texture.
  • Taste: No change
• Added 2 egg yolks (suggested by u/Samr1221 to reduce dry taste, presumably by coating other ingredients)
  • Batter: A little thicker, but closer to the original than the gelatin or ice-cream stabilizer
  • Deflation: Almost none
  • Moisture & texture: Not softer but more moist (in between allulose and gelatin).
  • Taste: Subtle improvement in taste (creamier?), but might be in my imagination.

All-in-all, a big improvement. All five changes increased moisture and reduced deflation. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the gelatin, but I figured it could be even further improved.

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Round 2: Further ingredient screening

With these initial results, I went back to r/ketorecipes for more advice. From that post, the main feedback was to try gluten as a replacement for gelatin or oil/butter instead of or in addition to the egg yolk, so I gave those a shot.

• Added 14 g vital wheat gluten mixed with dry ingredients. Same concept as the gelatin.
  • Batter: Slightly thicker
  • Deflation: Almost none
  • Moisture & texture: In-between allulose and gelatin in moisture, but texture was more bread like. 
  • Taste: A subtle savory taste that I liked.
• Added 20 g vegetable oil
  • Batter: no change
  • Deflation: Almost none
  • Moisture & texture: In-between allulose and gelatin in moisture, less dry feeling when eating 
  • Taste: no change
• Added 20 g melted butter
  • Batter: much thicker, seemed like the butter may have solidified (egg whites were cold)
  • Deflation: Almost none
  • Moisture & texture: Much less dry feeling, but the muffins were smaller and too dense. If these had been the same size/texture as the rest, they’d have been great.
  • Taste: no change

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Round 3: Combining changes

From rounds 1 & 2, I was getting significant improvements from allulose, gelatin, egg yolk, gluten, and vegetable oil, but I thought I could do even better by combining them. I didn’t want to add the additional calories from the oil (15 calories/muffin), so I didn’t include that in the combinations.

• 6 tsp. allulose + 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin
  • Batter: Slightly thicker, same as just gelatin
  • Deflation: Same as just gelatin
  • Moisture & texture: Slightly moister than just gelatin.
  • Taste: Same subtle creamy texture as when adding egg yolk to the base recipe
• 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin
  • Batter: Same as above
  • Deflation: Same as above
  • Moisture & texture: Slightly less moist than above, but still moister than just gelatin or egg yolk by themselves.
  • Taste: Same as above

Based on these results, combining the egg yolk and gelatin seemed worthwhile, but I wasn’t getting much milage out of the allulose. Since I get stomach issues when I eat more than 20-30 g of allulose per day, I decided to keep the liquid sucralose.

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Round 4: Optimizing for taste and convenience

Now that I had the basic ingredients figured out, I did a couple rounds of optimization of quantities. Specifically, I tried to figure out the right amount of gelatin/gluten, water, and seasonings (changes in bold).

• 2 egg yolk + 4 packets gelatin
  • Very thick batter, less deflated than 2 packets gelatin, soft & moist, but only slightly more than 2 packets
• 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 60 g water
  • Thin batter with some deflation. Much more moist and soft. Huge improvement.
• 2 egg yolk + 4 packets gelatin + 120 g water
  • Slightly more dense and a bit less “wet” than 2 packets + 60 g water. Very good, but I slightly prefer 2 packets + 60 g water.
  • Texture is near perfect, but taste is a bit bland. Needs more seasoning.
• 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 60 g water + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla
  • Flavor improved a bit. Still not perfect, but I’m happy with it and don’t want to add more ingredients. 
• 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 90 g water + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla
  • Slightly thinner batter and more deflation, but moister. I prefer this to the 60 g water.
• 2 egg yolk + 14 g gluten + 60 g water + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla
  • Much thinner batter, more bread-like texture, less “dry” taste, and less wet than gelatin. I prefer the gluten to the gelatin, but it’s a little less convenient and adds a slight amount of carbs (0.15 g/muffin or ~0.5 g per meal for me)
• 0 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 90 g water + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla
  • A little more wet and less creamy/drying vs. with the egg yolk, but it removes an ingredient.
• 0 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 80 g water + 10 g apple cider vinegar + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla 
  • This was an attempt to improve the flavor, but ended up with a very interesting effect.
  • The muffin had holes riddled throughout the structure (gas generated from vinegar reacting rapidly with baking powder).
  • I couldn’t taste the vinegar, but the slight bitter and dry tastes from the oat fiber were completely gone.
• 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 80 g water + 10 g apple cider vinegar + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla 
  • Indistinguishable from above, so with the apple cider vinegar, the egg yolk no longer has an effect.
• 2 egg yolk + 2 packets gelatin + 50 g water + 40 g apple cider vinegar + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla 
  • Slightly denser and chewier than 10 g vinegar. Still no vinegar taste, but I could detect a slight vinegar smell.
• 2 egg yolk + 14 g gluten + 70 g water + 20 g apple cider vinegar + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla 
  • Very good taste & texture, but not as large a vinegar effect as with gelatin, probably because the gluten already reduced the bitter and dry tastes.
• 0 egg yolk + 14 g gluten + 70 g water + 20 g apple cider vinegar + 1.5 tsp. cinnamon + 2 tbsp. vanilla 
  • Slightly more drying than with yolk.

The effect of the apple cider vinegar is extremely interesting, however, I noticed a greater rise in my blood sugar on the days when I ate muffins containing it. That could be a coincidence (it doesn’t contain any carbohydrates), but I need to experiment more before I start using it on a regular basis.

Based on all these experiments my final set of changes from the original recipe are:

• Add 2 packets of gelatin or 14 g gluten
• Reduce water from 180 to 90 g
• Increase cinnamon by 50% and vanilla by 33%
• Add 2 whole eggs & reduce egg whites by 60 g (equivalent to adding 2 egg yolks)

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Final Recipe

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