How to use Tapioca in your free from recipes

Tapioca is an extremely versatile ingredient that can bring extra nutritional value and play a key role in recipes, with useful binding and gelling properties. It’s a great option for gluten-free food applications, so we decided to explore how you can use tapioca to enhance your Free From products.

What is tapioca?

Native to South America, the tapioca root (also known as Cassava, Manioc or Yucca) is the third most important carbohydrate in the world. The Cassava plant is a root vegetable with a surprising amount of useful properties, thriving best in tropical, fertile ground. It is a common ingredient throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of South America, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands. The biggest tapioca producers are Nigeria, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil.

Recently, Tapioca Pearls have become somewhat of a trend, with more and more interest in the Taiwanese favourite, bubble tea.

Tapioca Starch

Tapioca Starch has a wide range of properties that make it a valuable ingredient in the food industry.

It can be used directly as cooked starch, or as a thickener, filler, binder or stabiliser.

The paste properties and high water-holding capacity of starch make it perfect for thickening and stabilising applications. Use this versatile starch as a thickener and stabiliser in fruit pies, soups, puddings, breads, sauces, soy, and meat products.

When used as a binder, Tapioca Starch will consolidate the mass and prevent products from drying out during cooking. Not only will it withstand long cooking times without breaking down, but products made with tapioca won’t lose their quality when frozen or reheated because it retains its impressive thickening capability throughout these processes.

Tapioca Starch becomes clear and gel-like when cooked and dissolves completely when used as a thickener. These superior gelling properties make it a preferred option over many other starches on the market.

If you’re working on a recipe and you’re concerned about Tapioca Starch overpowering the flavours in your product with that ‘starchy’ taste, there’s no need! This ingredient has a neutral taste that won’t mask the delicate flavours in your recipes.

It can also improve the appearance of your products, with the ability to give food a transparent, glistening sheen. The result is a perfectly smooth filling and a high gloss that makes the dish look even tastier. This is particularly great to use with high-acid fruits or a lattice-type pie.

Tapioca Starch Applications within the Food Industry:

• Baby Foods
• Bakery
• Biscuits
• Confectioners Custard
• Dairy Products
• Filled Sweets
• Frozen Foods
• Ice Creams
• Icings and Whipped Toppings
• Light Food
• Mayonnaise
• Pastas
• Puddings
• Salad Sauces
• Snacks

Cassava Flour

Although Tapioca Starch and Cassava Flour come from the same source they are very different products. Cassava Flour is a great alternative to wheat based flours, with the ability to replace it in biscuits, bread products, brownies, cookies, crepes, pancakes, waffles, and almost any other product that is usually made using wheat flour. It has a similar texture to cornflour and is often used as a thickening agent in soups, purees, and puddings.

Thanks to its similarities to standard wheat flours, it replaces the need to use a complex formulation of flours, starches, and hydrocolloids that are normally required in gluten-free products. This also results in far simpler, more consumer-friendly labels!

Tapioca in Free From recipes

Tapioca has a range of positive attributes. We love tapioca for its versatility and Free From properties: tapioca is gluten-free, nut-free and grain-free. It is high in fibre and contains small amounts of iron, while also being low in cholesterol and sodium.

Native tapioca is being used much more extensively in the food manufacturing sector in recent years, especially in the gluten-free market. High profile companies like Yeo Valley, Warburtons, and Mattessons are using it to enhance a variety of popular products, including gluten-free yoghurts, pizza bases, bread, wraps, crisps, biscuits and pastries.

BakeRite’s Tapioca

We stock Tapioca Starch and Tapioca Pearls, which we source from Brazil and Thailand. Quality Assurance is our main priority, and we are very proud to source from the only factories in Thailand that are BRC certified. By only dealing with Tapioca Starch producers that have sufficient quality assurance controls in place, we ensure that we have a good quality product and that the total hydrocyanic acid content of the product does not exceed the accepted level of 10mg/kg.

Watch our tapioca videos showcasing our Brazilian tapioca processes on our website or get in touch to request more information on our tapioca ingredients and full product range today.

Want to explore how Tapioca could make a difference to your Free From products?

Contact our team today on 0800 999 8876 or email [email protected] to discuss the options.