Hi Umpa,

I made lemon muffins from the bakery book and they are pretty darn good.  Just one slight problem - they seem to make my throat burn.  I am wondering if it could be the baking powder.  I remember experiencing something similar years ago when I used too much baking powder or too much baking soda in a pancake recipe.

I think I used three teaspoons in your recipe - is that the correct amount I should have used?

Other than the burning they are lovely.  I baked them in 12 silicone cupcake containers.

I also made a cream cheese frosting (85g cream cheese, 10 drops sugar free lemon extract, 1/8th tsp lemon zest and 6 tsps xylitol that I ground into icing "sugar" using my Bamix grinder.  I have not calculated the frosting but imagine it would add about 1 carb to each muffin (hopefully less).

I had a quick look online to see if there were any good substitutes for baking powder - saw one suggestion to use sour cream - what do you think?

Again, great recipe and look forward to your thoughts on baking powder.

Hi to all,

I just found about a site that looks promising.  As I'm in Australia postage will be a bit expensive but I'd like to try some of the products listed on their site.

Here's a link to their xylitol products. 

http://www.naturesflavors.com/diet/xylitol-products?limit=all

They also have some low carb products and erythritol products.

I am hoping there might be some people here at FattoSkinny who have tried some of the products and can let me know what they are like.

I have sent an email to the naturesflavours people requesting a list of all their low carb, xylitol and erythritol products with full nutritional data (on their site some products have this and others don't).  Hope they get back to me as I'd love to try some of their stuff. 

Morgan, you might also be interested as there looks like a lot of variety that we do not have in Australia. 

Hi Umpa and Doug,

I'm from Australia and am new to the forum here.  I just purchased your cooking ebooks and am excited about cooking some new things.   

Unfortunately, the variety of low carb products here in Australia is quite small compared to the USA (postage from USA to here would be expensive for heavy items).

Is there a thread anywhere on making our own products, substitutes, etc., rather than purchasing them readymade? 

I have a Vitamix blender that has a regular jug and a second "dry" jug.  The dry jug can be used to make flour from almonds.

I think you mention the NOW brand of non-blanched almond flour being one of the best with just 4 net carbs per cup.

If I grind my own almonds (skin left on) with the Vitamix and don't add anything else, do you think that would be equal to the carbs in the NOW brand?

I wonder if you have a moment you might be able to weigh a cup of the NOW brand non-blanched almond flour so I could use that as a guide. 

I've been low carbing since the beginning of 2014.  Your books and website will really help me to shake things up and keep it interesting.

Thanks for any help you can offer about the almond flour.