The best low -carb, sugar-free Cinnamon Rolls yet!

As some of you might know, I have in previous years and now do again, eat the low-carb and sugar free way. Not just for weight loss, but also for general health. As carbs are out, this sometimes involves a whole lot of tweaking and some "franken ingredients" to accomplish some faux favorites.

At times it also seems that cooking and baking is more involved because you have to mix this, that and the other to get the taste, mouth feel or synergy of what is usually just ONE ingredient, like flour or sugar. But I love to cook, I love to bake and I love to experiment. And my kids are willing taste testers!

And every once in a while I come up with a winner and I'll share it on this blog too :) Most of the ingredients I use are not locally available, but they are available at Netrition.com and I will note the others as to where I get them! 

So, now to the Cinnamon Rolls!

These might look involved, but really they aren't all that much. And if you are like me more about the quality of what you're eating, rather than the quantity, I think it's worth every minute spent on it.

Now granted, It's been at least 6 months since I've had a cinnamon roll, but to my taste buds and my brain, they tasted EXACTLY like this! So yummy!

And let me say up front that I tend to have wordy instructions. That doesn't mean the recipes are complicated. It just means I'm trying to anticipate all sorts of questions about the recipe and try and be as precise as possible

And no, I was just kidding with the fork. These are the "pick it up and sink your teeth into warm yummy gooey goodness" kind of buns. No fork required!

 

Cinnamon Rolls

1 cup Whole Calorie Coutndown Milk (or 1/2 cup of cream with 1/2 cup water)
1/4 cup light EVOO (or oil of choice)
1/4 cup erythritol
2 1/2 tsp rapid rise yeast
1 tsp sugar (for the yeast)
Flour mix:
1 1/4 cups carbalose
1/2 + 1/8 cup wheat protein isolate 5000
2.5 Tbs wheat protein isolate 8000
3.75 Tbs almond flour
3 Tbs resistant wheat starch
3 Tbs Oat fiber
1/2 tsp acacia gum
2 tsp cake enhancer (SO worth the two carbs! - from King Arthur Flour)
------------
1/4 tsp sweet dough flavoring (also from King Arthur Flour)
1/4 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/8 tsp Salt
1 tbsp SF Vanilla Syrup

FILLING and frosting (partially):

1 stick of butter melted (-1 tbsp for buttering the pan, -1 tbsp for frosting)
1/2 cup eryth powdered,
1/4 tsp sugar not,
1 capsule glucomannan
1 1/4 tsp Of Cinnamon, ground
FROSTING:
1/4 of the filling mix above
3 drops natural Maple Flavoring 
2 oz cream cheese, softened
pinch Salt

Preparation:

Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. Warm it until just a before hot. You should still be able to stick your finger in comfortably, even though it feels hotter than room temp. sprinkle in the yeast, stir and let it sit for 5 min. There will be a little bit of frothing action.

I leave it about as long as it takes me to measure out all the flour mix stuff.

In a separate bowl mix together all the flour mix ingredients, as well as the baking powder, baking soda and salt.

I used my bread machine for this step. I added the liquid, then the flour mix, then 1 tbsp of torani vanilla and the buttery sweet dough flavoring. I let the bread machine do all the mixing, helping it along a bit with a spatula in the beginning to incorporate all the flour in the corners.

Much to my amazement the dough that formed in there after about 10 minutes of mixing and kneading was pretty much exactly like a regular yeast dough.

A little puffy, not at all sticky, nice and elastic and I was able to roll it out on the counter top like any other dough (no extra flour or plastic mat needed.)

Actually it involved very little rolling. I could easily stretch the dough into the basic shape I wanted with my fingers, then just rolled it to even it out a little. Don't press down too hard with your rolling pin - we want to maintain as much "puff" as possible

Form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness maintaining a general rectangular shape (about 10" x 6".)

Melt the butter in the microwave, then take out about 1 tbsp for the pan and place another tablespoon full in a separate bowl (for the frosting.)

Then mix the melted butter with the erythritol, sugar-not, gluccomannan and cinnamon. It will thicken a little when you stir it in while the butter is warm. Spread 3/4 of the melted butter/sugar mix evenly over the dough regtangle with a spatula or palette knife.

Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Pinch the seam of the roll to seal it.

Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter in a nine inch round foil cake or pie pan. Then begin cutting the rolls into 10 equal sized pieces (about 1 inch) and lay them in the buttered pan. I actually had trouble fitting them all, so I baked two in a separate pan.

Cover with a plastic bag and let them rise until they about doubled in size. In our climate that's 90+ degree out on the porch in a shady spot for 1/2 hour. Adjust as needed to your circumstances. Don't let it go longer than 40 min though as they have a tendency to collapse!

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Once risen, bake the rolls on the middle rack until dark golden brown, about 25-30 minutes. The middle part of the center roll should be more "springy" than "spongy" as in it comes back up when you gently push it down a bit.

For the frosting, mix together the 1 tbsp of melted butter, the cream cheese, the remainder of the cinnamon mix, the maple flavoring and the salt and stir well until smooth. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm (but no longer hot) rolls.

Enjoy!

I have to do the final count on these, but from a rough count, they are about 4 carbs each.