The lead-up

While stuffing myself with lemon meringue tart, trifle and pavlova around Christmas, I read Tim Noakes’ Real Meal revolution book and become reconvinced that low-carb eating is the way to go in 2018.

The main course

My brother has been keen to explore the benefits of ketosis, so we decided to embark on a keto diet adventure together. Throughout January we shared recipes and motivation and I lost 3 kg. I was impressed by this! I have maintained my weight for at least two years, but have not been able to dip under it for long periods.

The Intermission

It was going surprisingly well so I decided to give myself a small break while my parents-in-law visited during the first week of February. Please don’t tell my brother.

I stretched my small break another week when I needed to travel to Florida and then another week to celebrate my work project coming off the ground. This has led to some disorderly eating to say the least.

The reboot

So, this weekend I have decided that March 2018 must be different. I am still planning on running the Rotterdam Marathon on the 8^th of April and would hate to carry any dessert-weight around the course.

I started Saturday enthusiastically with a spinach omelette and luncheoned on a whole BBQed chicken.

Then I decided to take it up a notch and bake a nut-crusted-avocado-chocolate keto-pie.

The battle

It didn’t take me long to decide on this Tastes Lovely’s avocado filling. I didn’t have any coconut flakes, but heaps of walnuts, so I paired it with this sugar-free nut crust.

I had to wing the pie crust a bit since I did not have white chia seeds, but black, and used Stevia instead of Lakanto monk fruit sweetener. The recipe was also a bit vague on how to combine the ingredients, so I just smashed everything together in a bowl with a fork.

The crust looked a bit raw after the specified time as well as after an additional 15 minutes, but I thought it would all come together in the end.

From the crust, it just went downhill. I don’t have a food processor, so I decided to Nutri-bullet the avocado and cocoa. Queue half chopped avo, stuck blades and cocoa on every kitchen surface.

Since I am “hard-core keto” 😉, I didn’t want to use maple syrup but Stevia. After putting in way too much sweeter, I started thinning down the brown avo-chunk mouse with real cream and then with coconut cream. The resulting chocolate goo tasted like Stevia extract.

Not being one to give up, I thought the crust and berries might break some of the taste and assembled a gigantic pie that can only be described as an unpalatable avocado-stevia mix with hints of raw chia seeds. Mmm…

The bitter-sweet defeat

At least I didn’t invite any guests to share in this death by chocolate experience with us; I guess it could have been worse.

The battle might have been lost, but I still have hope for the war. With any luck, this is not a prelude of what eating in March is going to be like!

Do you have any keto-baking horror stories? Please share them with me in the comments!