A Challenge: Recreating O'So Lo Rolls

[NulloModo]

So, as it appears O' So Lo low-carb rolls are leaving the market, or have effectively already dissapeared, it is time to find a suitable replacement. I am not impressed by any other commerical low-carb bread offerings that I have seen (but if you know something wonerful, fill me in), as they either have too high a carb count (the usual problem) or contain ingredients which I would rather not ingest (real flour, even if whole wheat, corn starch, etc).

The beautiful thing about the O' So Lo rolls was the very low carb count (on;y 3.5 grams per roll or so, most low-carb bread has more than that per slice), the great taste, the low price, and the fact that there was nothing in them that wasn't even induction legal.

My project, and challenge, is to figure out how to recreate these in my own home. Alas, I no longer have a package to read the ingredients from, so I don't even know where to start. Anyone else who enjoyed these as much as I did and would like to help come up with a copycat recipe, let's get going.

[MotherOfGizmo]

I have never had them so wouldnt' even know where to start! Maybe someone has a package they can at least list the ingredients. I just did a a search and there are a couple of places still selling them--maybe order a package and then you'll have the ingredients list?

[lostandfound]

I found this Nullo... It appears the website is gone as well!!!

http://abc.eznettools.net/D300692/X309674/osolo_rollz.html

Original Rollz Nutritional Facts:
Serving Size: 1 rollz 2oz. (56g), Servings Per Container 4, Calories 170, Calories from Fat 80, Total Fat 9g, Saturated Fat 1.5g, Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 150mg, Total Carbohydrate 10g*, Dietary Fiber 7g*, Sugars 0g, Protein 12g, Vitamin A 0%, Vitamin C 10%, Calcium 2%, Iron 8%

Original Rollz Ingredients:
Water, gluten, flaxseed, canola oil, vegetable fiber, inulin, yeast, Contains 2% or less of each of the following: salt, datem, sodium stearoyl lactylate, potassium sorbate (as preservative), L-cysteine, ascorbic acid.

Hmmm..these ingredients look do-able... Keep us posted..
I'm no good with recreating. Heck, half the time I can't recreate my own creations....lol

Hugs,Tammy

[MotherOfGizmo]

Good detective work lostandfound!

[lostandfound]

*takes a bow! :joy


Thanks!!! ...hey MOG..we bought a house!!! I'm so excited...


Hugs,Tammy

[2big4mysize]

vegetable fiber is the thing you need to determine. I can tell you it isn't a soy product as I got that info out of them before I tasted one.

I'm pretty sure because of the color of the plain rollz they used golden flax meal but either will work.

You might check with Chris at Honeyvillegrain.com He has been very helpful in getting low carb baking ingredients for many of us.

Please post the recipe when you get finished cause I can't eat any of the other commercial ones and I'm in mourning over my loss of bread.

[NulloModo]

I know honeyville sells oat fiber, I'm wondering if that might work in the stead of 'vegetable fiber'.

I notice they also contain yeast, but looking at the recipe, I am not sure what the yeast were feeding off of to give the rising action.

Inulin will be the other difficult ingredient to obtain.

[2big4mysize]

Diabetic sweet has inulin Mullo Mondo

okay from Bread 101

Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) 1/8 tsp. per recipe Creates an acidic environment for the yeast which helps it work better. It also acts as a preservative & deters mold and bacterial growth. With just a touch of ascorbic acid, your Artisan breads, the yeast will work longer and faster. French bakers add it to their French bread, baguette or boule recipe.
If you can't find pure ascorbic acid crystals you can use Fruit Fresh (canning isle) or a crushed/powdered vitamin C tablet, but measure accordingly.

Vital Wheat GlutenUse 1 teaspoon per cup of all-purpose or 1- 2 teaspoons per cup of bread flour; 1-1/2 to 3 teaspoons for every cup of whole grain or rye flours. In a dry form, it is used to give the yeast a boost because it contains a high amount of gluten forming proteins. Vital wheat gluten only does one thing, it helps improve the rise and texture of bread. With out it you have a rock, door stop, paper weight.
Use it in your heavier breads that rise slowly, such as rye, whole grains, or ones loaded with sugar, dried fruit and nuts. Do not add it to regular bread recipes. Some people use it all the time when using a Bread Machine especially when using whole grain or all-purpose flour.

Inulin Many different species of yeast are able to utilize Inulin/FOS for energy.

and finally
Sodium stearoyl lactylate is an emulsifier used as a dough strengthener in baked goods. It has several features that combine to make it very popular with bakers. It maintains the texture of fresh baked bread by keeping the amylose starch in its gelled state, preventing its recrystallization. It makes the gluten in the bread stronger and more extensible, increasing the volume of the loaf. It disperses the fats in the bread, making it softer, while allowing less fat to be used.It absorbs water, allowing the baker to get 1 to 1.5% more loaves from the same ingredients, thus making each loaf less expensive.
It has a sweet taste, allowing less sugar to be used in the bread.

[scott123]

Alright, I've plugged the nutritional specs for all the major players into an excel spreadsheet and, after a couple hours of number crunching, I think I have some some ratios to work with.

Most of the ingredients are nice and simple in the way they impact the nutritional count (fiber impacts carbs/fiber, gluten is mostly protein/some carb, oil registers as fat grams). The real wrench in the works is flax with it's fat, carbs, fiber AND protein. After quite a bit of tweaking, two scenarios are producing matching nutritional figures to the osolo rolls. They are:

Proportion of total mix (by weight)

Gluten 36 %
Flax 32 %
oil 15 %
fiber 10 %
inulin 3 %
salt 1.1 %

Gluten 39 %
Flax 26 %
oil 16 %
fiber 12 %
inulin 3 %
salt 1.1 %

From what I know about gluten, 39% feels a little high. Using the first set of numbers, I calculated quantities of each item to match a serving as well as a 4 serving recipe. Here are the numbers for 4 servings:

Gluten 6 T
Flax 5 T + 1 t.
oil 1 T. + 1.5 t.
fiber 3 T. + 1 t.
inulin 2 t.
salt 1/4 t.

This is my best guess on a reverse engineer from the nutritional info. If anyone wants to see the progression/play with the numbers themselves, I'll be happy to send them my excel spreadsheet.

As far as the remaining ingredients... For someone with a little breadmaking experience, those shouldn't be hard to ascertain. These loaves are light/puffy, which is usually a sign of a fairly slack (moist) dough. The old adage for yeast also applies "How much yeast to use? Enough" I think some experimentation will be necessary to ascertain the yeast content. Flax seems to have some leavening qualities of it's own, so it might take a little less yeast than expected. Right now I need a break from all this. Ask me tomorrow about yeast.

Inulin, as far as I know, is a close molecular relative to polydextrose. Polydextrose should not only work in this instance, it should be easier to find as well as be substantially cheaper.

In a recent Q&A with master baker Peter Reinhart, he shed quite a bit of light on the nutritional requirements for yeast. For those wishing the cliff notes, yeasts do prefer simple sugars, but they can thrive on the small amounts of sugar found in lc flours like almond, soy and flax. Not to mention, the vital wheat gluten in this recipe has a small amount of wheat starch which will be broken down for yeast food as well.

Nullo, I'm pretty sure the "vegetable fiber" in the ingredients is oat fiber. If it were corn bran, it would probably say corn bran. Same thing for the fiber gums I think. Psyllium husks might qualify as 'vegetable fiber' but I sort of doubt it. My money's on oat fiber.

2big, that's some great info, especially the stuff on sodium stearoyl lactylate. I was aware of it's anti-staling properties but not the increased gluten extensibility. I think, though, if anything would be a candidate for omission, this would be it, due to the difficulty in finding it for sale.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards a straight dough method (everything combined at once), but, like the yeast quantity... ask me tomorrow

[NulloModo]

Wow, thanks Scott and 2big.

This is shaping together a lot faster than I anticipated. I will have to mail order some of these things (I have no WPI, am almost out of Oat Bran, and will need to pick up some Polydextrose (you are right Scott, prices seem much cheaper than Inulin) and Citric Acid, as well as seeing if I can even obtain some of those other things).

Once I get the goods I will start playing with it. I am not the worlds best baker, I Am actually very new at baking, and don't tend to do it much. However, if I can pull this one off it will be a huge confidence boost, as well as doing a lot to ease my grief about the demise of O' So Lo (how the **** did they go under anyway? I always saw their product fly off the shelf at Safeway, they made the best low-carb bread ever).

[2big4mysize]

scott don't forget the asocrbic acid is a carb too.

are we saying the gluten is vital wheat gluten or gluten flour?

[NulloModo]

Citric Acid is a carb?

[NulloModo]

I just placed an order with Honeyville for 5 lbs of WPI, 4 lbs of Oat Fiber, 5 lbs of Polydextrose, and 5 lbs of Corn Bran. Hopefully with all of this (well, the Corn Bran is for Najas lc cornbread) I can start recreating.

[scott123]

Nullo, I'm sure you can do this. Breadmaking has a huge number of variables that will probably make it impossible to create a perfect carbon copy of the osolo rolls, but I think you can come very close.

As far as the demise of osolo... The lack of any communication from the company is very very strange. It's as if these guys just fell off the face of the earth. Hopefully time will bring some answers.

I've been playing around with a soy powder based tortilla and so far it's been pretty mediocre. I've got a lot of culinary projects on my plate at the moment, but I think at some point I may give these rolls a shot.

Make sure you get ascorbic acid (vitamin C) rather than citric acid. Citric acid doesn't do the same things for bread that ascorbic does. And although WPI can usually be substituted successfully for vital wheat gluten, I wouldn't do it here. I would venture to say that the 25% starch in the VWG is probably pretty critical for creating the proper mouthfeel and in providing food for the yeast.

[scott123]

scott don't forget the asocrbic acid is a carb too.

are we saying the gluten is vital wheat gluten or gluten flour?

Yes, ascorbic acid is a carb. I didn't include it in my calculations because it was so far down the list. Since it appears quite a bit below salt and sodium is 150 mg, that makes it's carb contribution minimal. I just noticed that it lists one serving as having 10% of the RDA for Vitamin C. I took a look at the FDA regulations for labeling - the RDA for Vitamin C is 60 milligrams, making 10% 6 milligrams. So for a 4 serving recipe:

24 milligrams Vitamin C

As far as I know, vital wheat gluten and gluten flour are one in the same. It can get a little confusing since some people use the term 'gluten flour' to describe 'high gluten flour' or 'high gluten bread flour.' This definitely cannot be high gluten flour - there's no way they could acheive that low of a net carb count. I also gave some thought to whether or not they could be using the term 'gluten' to refer to WPI, since technically WPI could be call that. I tried plugging the values for WPI into my spreadsheet - there is no ratio where WPI could match the nutritional values. I'm certain, that when they say 'gluten' it's vital wheat gluten.