If you spend any amount of time looking over Paleo recipes, especially Paleo baking recipes, you’re going to come across ingredients like coconut flour, almond flour, tapioca starch, and arrowroot powder. More recently, cassava flour has become hugely popular in Paleo circles. Otto’s graciously sent me a large bag of their cassava flour for me to try and review, and I have to say, I really like it.
The flour is fine and white, but more substantial than tapioca starch or arrowroot powder. You can replace it 1:1 in recipes calling for wheat flour or almond flour, making it a great alternative for a Paleo eater who has a nut allergy. Otto’s packaging says you don’t have to keep their flour refrigerated either, which to me is a nice bonus because fridge space can be quite limited when you’re eating as many fresh foods as Paleo eaters do!
The only ingredient in Otto’s cassava flour is 100% cassava flour. Sadly, that’s not the case for a lot of gluten-free flours and Paleo flours. It’s nice to know exactly what you’re paying for and eating.
I used Otto’s cassava flour in a number of recipes before writing this review: strawberry shortcake, biscuits and gravy, shepherd’s pie, cake, pancakes, and Paleo bread. It worked in all of them.
Some tips for using cassava flour:
- If you’re making thinner batter, you may need to add just a bit more liquid to your recipe. I noticed that on things like pancakes, the batter got thick as I continued to cook through the batter, so I added just a bit more almond milk to keep the consistency the same.
- As with most Paleo baked items, denseness can be an issue. Biscuits are usually good when dense, but cakes, not so much. To combat the slight chance of denseness, add a sprinkle of cream of tartar to your recipe. It will help things to fluff up nicely. You can also whip egg whites if your recipe calls for eggs to add some extra air to your batter.
- If you’re making a recipe that does not call for cassava, you can still use cassava as the perfect dusting flour!
- As mentioned above, you don’t have to store cassava in your refrigerator, so it’s kept perfectly in your well-stocked Paleo pantry.