I am making my through peanut butter powder and hemp protein. Kind of bored with both and welcome recommendations by brand name. I use the powders in non dairy shakes/smoothies.
Thanks, Rooster
Oh man, protein powders are SO hit or miss. Even the same company one flavor can be great and another just icky.
Honestly i would say your best bet is to use straight up hemp seeds, plain greek yogurt, kefeir, or get peanut flour (same thing as powdered peanut butter basically only a lot cheaper). Otherwise buying individual packets to try first is a good idea, my whole foods has a good selection. These are the few plant based proteins I don’t hate…
I really liked the vegan vanilla from biochem- which actually doesn’t have any weird science lab ingredients or sugar alchohols. It’s super smooth even just blended with almond milk, and made with a blend of pea/hemp/cranberry proteins
http://www.biochem-fitness.com/100-vegan-protein-vanilla-flavor
I’ve bought amazing grass for years, and they reformulated their protein blend which is great too- but! Do NOT get the “original” which is really rough. It’s not delicious with just almond milk but works well blended into a smoothie. I like that it includes a ton of micronutrients from the greens blend and i can pronounce all the ingredients.
https://www.amazinggrass.com/store/protein-superfood-pure-vanilla.html
I used to buy garden of life, but it has erythritol which is a sugar alcohol and that bothers my stomach now- if you tolerate sugar alchohols then it’s a good one.
https://www.gardenoflife.com/content/product/why-choose-raw-protein/
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Very helpful, I need to do more reading up as well.
I didnt know where to start and I have never seen peanut flour. What brand is that?
I’ve found the best price for peanut flour from nuts.com- and you’ll notice its waaaaaayyy cheaper than any protein powder yet really similar in nutrition. Ingredients: peanuts. And that’s it.
I know there are a bazillion whey and egg protein powders out there too, but some of them have seriously bizarre ingredients and/or use factory farmed animal products, so if that matters for you just be sure to scrutinize the ingredients
Yes thats why I started this topic. So many powders read bizzare. I dont want to waste time and money on junk powder.
A dietician recently recommended that I throw protein powder into shakes and smoothies, in order to put on weight, but I’ve already tried that, and hate the resulting texture.
She then suggested that I try it in pancakes, which I have yet to try, but I’m wondering about substituting if for some of the flour in a cake. I googled it, and came up with recommendations to also increase the moisture content of the cake as protein powder has a dehydrating effect.
Has anyone here tried it, and if so, any specific protein powder? I’m planning to try it first in David Lebovitz’s almond cake, which I’ve made many times. Note: cholesterol is not a concern.
I experimented a lot in the past with using protein powder in pancakes/etc. I used unflavored whey protein isolate. I’m currently using the Now brand, which is good quality and reasonably inexpensive. (Prices have absolutely skyrocketed the past couple of years.) I’ve heard that casein is slightly easier to work with for baking, but it’s incredibly expensive.
Your research is dead-on: Adding whey quite often makes the end result taste dry and rather sad. What you need more importantly than moisture is a bit more fat to help cover up the dry feeling. Do you like pumpkin stuff? I spent a lot of time developing a pumpkin protein pancakes recipe that I think is pretty good; I am happy to dig it out for you. (I don’t bother making this kind of stuff anymore; I do my daily whey supplementation these days with just straight whey mixed with water and chugged down.)
As for that cake, it happens to be one of my all-time favorite cake recipes and I wouldn’t want to adulterate it with anything 
…
Edit: I just thought a bit more about this and remembered that my main finding when messing with all of this stuff was that heat control was absolutely key. At some point, as you heat protein, it coagulates/clumps, and that’s when the dryness really kicks in. I remember having to be very, very careful to not overcook pancakes. I’m not sure a cake will be that forgiving, especially around the edges. I wonder if a cheesecake or something like that would be a better option here; just a thought.
Thanks for the feedback. I would appreciate your pancake recipe.
I’m not a lover of cheesecake. I love cheese, but find cheesecake too too cloying.
Okay, I will not bugger up Lebovitz’s almond cake; however, I reduce the amount of sugar and leave out the salt as it makes it salty. I really love it, and have experimented with putting orange zest into it, which works very well. My next step is to put Grand Marnier and candied kumquats into it; I recently made the kumquat recipe posted here by @Nannybakes, and it turned out great!
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Okay, here’s my recipe. This is designed to make a pretty large batch: I used to make enough to have plenty of leftovers to freeze so my kids and I could eat them for breakfast on occasion. So you might want to scale it back a bit if it’s just for you.
225g AP flour
75g white whole wheat flour (King Arthur “Golden”)
100g whey protein isolate
10g baking powder
4g baking soda
4g salt
1.5 tsp cinnamon
210g pumpkin puree (1/2 can)
1c buttermilk
4 eggs
4 tbsp butter, melted
60g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Procedure:
Combine dry ingredients in one bowl. In a second bowl, whisk pumpkin, buttermilk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Whisk in melted butter. Pour wet mixture over dry mixture and fold to combine.
Cook on a griddle at 350F. Do not overcook! Flip before tops are as fully set as with normal pancakes.
Note: In my notebook I wrote DO NOT OVERCOOK in all caps, double-underlined. I vaguely remember the first couple of batches being really dry, before I figured out how much to cook them. I hope it works out if you try it, or at least gives you some ideas! Good luck.
Thank you! I will give it a shot in the next week. BTW, I really appreciate the weights.
