[loisba]

I notice a lot of recipes call for potato starch, which of course, I don't have. I'm very limited in what is available to me locally, and my limited resources prevent me from doing much buying online. My mom, bless her, sent me a couple of boxes filled with flours she had found in Akron, rice flour, soy flour, buckwheat flour, corn starch (of course, that I can get locally), corn meal and corn flour, arrowroot powder, and xanthan gum. From what I've been reading, I think I could substitue the arrowroot or the corn starch for the potato starch. (Correct me if I'm wrong, please! )
But my real question is, can I substitute instant mashed potatoes in any way for the potato starch? And I've also noticed references to potato flour. What is that? Can the instant mashed potatoes substitute for that?
Sorry for what I'm sure is a really dumb question, but you never know until you ask, right?

[aklap]

Nope - that's not a dumb question. It's quite a good question!

Potato starch and potato flour are 2 different ingredients. It doesn't help matters when they label a product "Potato Starch Flour" Which is it...starch or flour?? It's really starch. They are using flour in a generic sense.

Flour is the result of grinding up a food item (potato, corn, wheat , etc)

Starch is what is extracted from a food item. It's also much finer in it's consistancy. Used a lot for thicken sauces. It's much lighter than flour.

Potato starch and potato flour are not really interchangable.

I don't think I'd use instant mashed taters for potato starch - I suspect it's much too heavy depending on the finished product. Although I'd have to look at what goes into instant taters to know - we rarely use them.

Tapioca Starch and Tapioca Flour are the same things.

Potato Flour: http://www.ener-g.com/store/detail.a...&id=109&cat=10
Potato Starch: http://www.ener-g.com/store/detail.a...&id=111&cat=10

This is kind of cool - lots of info on differnet starches:
http://www.foodsubs.com/ThickenStarch.html

Some basic guidelines on what to use when (look towards the bottom of the page): http://www.csaceliacs.org/recipes.php

[myst]

Hi Lois,

Al is right. Potato starch and potato flour are two very different things. I've run across sites that say they are the same and interchangeable - apparently those people have never tried baking with them.

I've been substituting a small amount of potato flour in place of the same amount of potato starch in some recipes. The buns I've made doing that have come out moister, more tender, and not crumbly. Substitute too much and the end product will be very dense, very heavy, very moist, and may not bake completely. Yup, that loaf got tossed. Baked it 2 hours and it still wasn't done!

I have heard of some people who have used instant mashed potato flakes in place of potato flour - not potato starch, but I haven't tried it. If you do, make sure to check the ingredients to make sure it's pretty much just potato.

You can sub corn starch in place of potato starch. I had to do that when making buns one day, and they came out just fine. I believe you can sub arrowroot as well, and others I think, but I haven't tried any of them either.

Good luck!

[loisba]

Thanks, guys! Glad I asked! I'm currently working on a bread where i subbed arrowroot for the potato starch. Hope it works out, bread is one of the things I really miss. Which is weird, because I never used to eat that much bread.
Thanks, Al, for the link to the Cook's Thesaurus. Very interesting and informative!
I'm trying to figure out how to use the tapioca my Mom sent me. It's not ground, it's in pearls and granulated. I've used the granulated by basically soaking it overnight in whatever liquid I'm going to be using in the recipe and it mostly dissolves into starch by morning. I'm not sure if the pearls will work the same way. I have no way to grind it into a flour, and have been afraid to put it into a recipe as is. Is there a better way?

[myst]

Do you have a coffee grinder? I think you can use one to grind tapioca pearls or even the granulated stuff into tapioca flour. It might not come out quite as fine as buying the actual flour tho. I haven't tried it with tapioca, but I do use a coffee grinder to grind flax seed and almonds into meal. It works great.

As for bread, I just posted about an awesome bread recipe I found. Here's the link to my post:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...6447#post56447

I want to try this using buckwheat in place of the sorghum flour, but I haven't worked with either flour before.

[KimS]

I wanted to reinforce, also, that it is an excellent question! Never seen a dumb one... but this one is a high calibur question because starches are confusing.

Arrowroot, IMO (in my opinion), is one of the best starches available. It is interchangeable with corn starch, tapioca, potato starch, etc. etc. (any of those fine powders that are used for thickening things).

Arrowroot, from my reading, was historically used for allergic treatment and to heal the body/gut. It is still used in pharmaceuticals today.

It doesn't require a large amount of energy to do what you want. As a matter of fact, you don't want to 'boil' it or it will turn into 'snot' (sorry ).

It can help make a crispy rice waffle recipe, softer and more pliable... and as you practise with it, it becomes easier and easier to use.

It's all I use for 'starch'... though I don't really use that much.

Good luck with your bread! There've been a couple of really great recipes posted this last week. I look forward to trying them myself!

It sounds like you're really getting the hang of things rather quickly!

[loisba]

Thanks, Kim, I'm doing my best! My last loaf turned out edible. Truth be told, it was probably better than edible, but I just seem to have a wheat flour/gluten mind set when it comes to bread loaves. I want them to look and act like the real thing! And of course, they don't.
I'm going to try that recipe you suggested, Myst. I tried grinding the tapioca in my coffee mill, but it kept jamming it , and I was afraid of burning out the motor. I may try a towel and a hammer! If I get it down small enough it may go through the coffee mill, or grind in the blender or the food processor. If my towel/ hammer idea works, I'll put the grandkids to work at it.
Al, I checked out some of those other links you posted, and checked for the nearest outlet for the Ener-G flours, and lo and behold, there's one at Paris, TN, about 30 minutes away. I'm going to go Monday and check out their prices!
Hugs,

[KimS]

I tried grinding the tapioca in my coffee mill, but it kept jamming it , and I was afraid of burning out the motor.

I suspect that the type of mill she was talking about was the '2 arms spinning' kind rather than a 'burr' type mill. I say this because she also mentions grinding nuts in it and I know that nuts would be way too big to get through my burr mill but I do grind them with my little '2-arm-baby'.

The 2-arm-babies are very cheap and make life very easy when it comes to grinding nuts, etc. Esp. when you don't want to do a whole food processor full of nuts.

Glad to hear your bread turned out well Lois. I tried to roll and braid mine and then raise it again... afraid it was just too much to ask. The next batch, I will braid and roll immediately and then raise it overnight.

I haven't given up yet!!

[myst]

Yup, my coffee grinder is the "2 arms spinning" kind. I didn't know there was another kind. Never thought about it.

I'm sorry that didn't work for you, Lois. And I should've said this in my first post - the potato starch flour vs potato flour question is a VERY good question. Especially when I see so many sites that say they are the same thing when they're not.

Originally Posted by loisba

I tried grinding the tapioca in my coffee mill, but it kept jamming it , and I was afraid of burning out the motor. I may try a towel and a hammer!

That's a good way to get rid of some frustration. LOL

You might want to call the outlet store before driving the 30 minutes to get there, just to make sure they still have it in stock. I've run across some sites that say such and such store carries such and such, and when I get there, they don't have it and haven't carried it for months or more.

Good luck on the bread. Let us know how it turns out.

[loisba]

Well, the bread was just edible, but my cookies turned out super! I'm trying to find the thread that I got the original cookie recipe off of, so I can post my results.
I think I may just have to stick to "gorditas" when it comes to bread. A gordita is basically a corn tortilla, but made by hand so it comes out thicker than normal. It's 'baked' on top the stove in a dry skillet, turning when needed, and then sliced with a sharp knife held parallel to the flat surface of the gordita so that it ends up with a pocket in its center, much like a pita bread. You then stuff the pocket with anything that suits your fancy. My Hispanic friends will stuff them with beans and cheese, meat, whatever. They'd probably be good even with seasoned rice stuffed in them.
Hugs,