The Difference between Potato Flour and Potato Starch

Potato Flour

Potato flour is made from whole potatoes (most of the time even the peel is included). The potatoes can be raw or cooked. Either way they are first dried then ground into flour.

The result is a heavy, cream colored flour with a distinct potato flavor. The flour readily absorbs liquid (similar to coconut flour in this regard), so it works best when incorporated into gluten free flour blends in small amounts. Too much potato flour in a recipe will cause the finished product to be dense and gummy. For example, a muffin with too much potato flour would never fully cook through. (Yes, that’s personal experience talkin’!)

However, used in smaller quantities, the same properties of potato flour that lead to an overly dense and doughy finished product can actually mimic gums and help hold a recipe together. It also lends a hearty texture to baked goods. This, along with the potato flavor it imparts, makes potato flour a good choice in recipes for savory gluten free breads or rolls.

What you will see more often used in gluten free recipes is potato starch.

Potato Starch

Potato starch is a very fine white powder starch, similar in texture to cornstarch. If you’re not very careful when working with and measuring potato starch, you can create quite a cloud in the kitchen! (Yes, personal experience again!).

It is made from the dried starch component of peeled potatoes. It has no potato flavor so works well in most recipes, sweet or savory.

As part of the starch component of a gluten free flour blend, potato starch lends a light, fluffy texture to baked goods.

It is also a great thickener in gravies, sauces, and even in custards and puddings, which typically use cornstarch.

This is great news for individuals with a corn allergy or those on a grain free diet. Potato starch is also permitted for Passover (for this reason, some stores stock it in the Kosher section; if you are having trouble locating it in your supermarket, be sure to check there).

BUT, if you use potato starch as a thickener for a liquid (like gravy or a sauce), here’s a very useful tip: Unlike cornstarch, a liquid thickened with potato starch should never be boiled. The potato starch loses its ability to thicken once boiled.

Both potato starch and potato flour are available in most mainstream markets or specialty stores. If you have trouble locating them in stores, a great place to locate gluten free flours online quickly and easily is the Gluten Free Resource Directory.

gluten-free flours

Potato starch/powder/flour

Potato stratch in Wekipedia

Use

Starch derivatives are used in many recipes, for example in noodles, wine gums, cocktail nuts, potato chips, hot dog sausages, bakery cream and instant soups and sauces, in gluten-free recipes[3] in kosher foods for Passover [4] and in Asian cuisine.[5] In pastry, e.g. sponge cake, it is used to keep the cake moist and give a soft texture. It is also occasionally used in the preparation of pre-packed grated cheese, to reduce sweating and binding.

Other examples are helmipuuro a porridge made from monodisperse grains of potato starch and milk, papeda, the Moluccan community in the Netherlands use potato starch to make papeda, soul food of the Moluccan Archipelago (East-Indonesia). On the Moluccan islands they use sago flour to make the original papeda. Papeda is also eaten by the Papuan people of New Guinea.

It is also used in technical applications as wallpaper adhesive, for textile finishing and textile sizing, in paper coating and sizing and as an adhesive in paper sacks and gummed tape.

Potato varieties

Microsopic view: potato starch (amyloplasts) in plant cell

There are many types of potatoes. For the production of potato starch, potato varieties with high starch content (high under water weight) and high starch yields are selected. Recently, a new type of potato plant was developed that only contains one type of starch molecule: amylopectin, the waxy potato starch. Waxy starches, after starch gelatinisation, retrograde less during storage.

The cultivation of potatoes for starch mainly takes place in Germany, the Netherlands, China, Japan,[6] France, Denmark and Poland, but also in Sweden, Finland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Canada and India.

Some potato starch is also produced as a by-product from the potato processing industry, recovered from the potato cutting circuit during the production of French fries and potato chips.

------------------------- Imp diff between Potato powder and stratch ---------------------------------

Potato starch flour is obtained by grinding the tubers to a pulp and removing the fibre and protein by water-washings. Potato starch (flour) is very white starch powder used as a thickening agent. Standard (native) potato starch needs boiling, to thicken in water, giving a transparent gel. Because the flour is made from neither grain nor legume, it is used as substitute for wheat flour in cooking by Jews during Passover, when grains are not eaten.

Potato flour, often confused with potato starch, is a peeled, cooked potato, mashed, mostly drumdried and grinded potato flakes using the whole potato and thus containing the protein and some of the fibres of the potato; having an off-white slight yellowish color. Dehydrated potatoes or instant mashed potatoes can also be granular, flakes.[15] Potato flour is cold-water soluble; however, it isn't used often as it tends to be heavy.