Potato starch is often also called potato flour. Don’t confuse the two, however.
- Potato Flour is heavier in weight than Potato Starch;
- Potato Flour has a potato flavour to it; Potato Starch has no discernible flavour;
- Potato Starch can thicken a greater amount of liquid than Potato Flour can; if you try to use Potato Flour instead to thicken an identical amount of liquid, you’d end up with a gloopy mess.
Substitutes
If a recipe calls for potato flour and you don’t have any, leave out anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the total flour in the recipe (if the recipe uses less than 2 cups of flour, leave out 1/4 cup; over 2 cups, leave out 1/2 cup of flour) and swap in for that amount of flour left the same amount of instant mashed potato flakes.
Nutrition
Potato Flour is gluten free. It has a protein content similar to rice, but a lower protein content than cornmeal or wheat flour.
Equivalents
1 cup =8 oz / 225g
Storage Hints
Store Potato Flour in the refrigerator or in the freezer.
History Notes
The French at first didn’t know how to use potatoes. In the mid 1700s, when wheat flour was expensive and scarce, the French peasants made flour out of potatoes and tried to make bread out of that flour. You can imagine what a loaf of bread made entirely out of gluten-free flour made from a root vegetable would have turned out like.
The original recipe for Krispy Kreme doughnuts, reputedly acquired from a New Orleans chef named Joe LeBeau, contained some Potato Flour. It no longer does; they use soy flour instead, along with other flours.