As one would expect from part human, part machine, food is a difficult situation from me. Even if you disregard the concept of “what does a cyborg eat?” it’s more of a question of “If we had to put a battery in her, something was probably wrong to begin with”. And they would be right. So to take care of some somewhat/maybe/mildly/whothefuckknows related issues, I’m stuck on what is called a ketogenic diet.

Now, you may ask, “What the hell is a ketogenic diet? And why is this on a geek blog?” Roughly put, a ketogenic diet is a low carbohydrate, high fat diet meant to put your body into a state in which it starts producing “ketones”. This allows your body to use fats as fuel instead of carbs. Many people use this for weight loss, but doctors often prescribe it for things like preventing seizures, or in my case, to limit the severity of allergic reactions. So why am I posting about this on a geek blog? Well for one, science is cool. Second, more than being a geek blog, this is blog is about entertainment! And so help me, these cooking adventures have been as entertaining as they have been monstrous.

This is my second time on a ketogenic diet, and I quickly learned the first time around that your best bet on a low carb diet is stick with what is naturally low carb. Steak, cheese, veggies, are all great options. This time I wanted to have some fun with it. Just how close can you get to “bread” without using flour, or yeast, or you know, most things you’d find in bread. They make it look so easy! I’ve been collecting these amazing looking substitutes on pinterest for some time now, and thought I’d share with you as I try them. Now I was a bad baker beforehand. Adding in these new “requirements” has only complicated the matter. Trying to find new ways to make things rise, soft, sweet, without using conventional methods takes research, and sometimes it feels like, a science degree. So to quote Mark Watney from The Martian:

“I’m going to have to science the shit out of this”

Tonight’s adventure is one I picked up from Pinterest called a “Sugar Free Skillet Brownie”. I won’t use the photo or put a link, because I know I can’t do it justice and that’s not fair to the author. Rest assured it looks pretty damned tasty in their professional looking photos. It uses erythritol, unsweetened chocolate, an unholy amount of butter, and she says you can use almond flour. Ok, let’s do this.

Well, I made a thing.

In the fancy professional photos it looks a lighter brown, decently thick, and, well, brownie like. I will give myself bonus points for colour matching the brownie to the cast iron. Funny enough, this isn’t burnt. Honestly. That’s just the colour. It’s also very, very flat. It does smell a little like burnt popcorn though.

I think I shall dub this “Sugar Free Chocolate-ish Carbon”. Add this and a healthy dose of cool whip, then add more cool whip, and a bit more and you might have yourself a dessert.