All about Otto's [Natural Cassava Flour]

PRODUCT REVIEW

What is Otto's Natural Cassava Flour? 
It's a whole yuca root, dried & ground, to make a flour. It's gluten & nut-free, which makes it a good choice for allergy-free baking. Note: Tapioca is also made from yuca but just the starch and it's bleached. Tapioca starch and cassava flour are definitely two different products with different baking properties and cannot be subbed out for one another.

What I love about Otto's:
It's easy. Rather than having a gluten-free recipe with 5 different flours, this cassava flour can replace most of them and subs pretty darn close to 1 for 1 with wheat flour. The Urban Poser actually broke it down into weight, if you want to get technical about it. Cassava is heavier (140 g per cup) than wheat flour (120 g per cup) so it's more like 3/4ish cup cassava to 1 cup wheat. Grab a kitchen scale and WEIGH IT for best results in baking.

Nut-Free Paleo Banana Bread
from Merit + Fork

Anyway, if you're not overly picky, you can use it in place of wheat flour in your old favorite recipes and get somewhere between an edible to enjoyable result without much hassle.  But if you're more into perfection (Hi, my name is Karin.), then you can research recipes and experiment by mixing it with different ingredients to get a really satisfying baked good. You will have the texture of wheat flour and a similar flour-like favor that will bring back a flood of fond memories from when your days were gluten-filled instead of gluten-free. That's pretty much what this Merit + Fork banana bread did for me, at least.

Additionally, I love that cassava flour is nut-free because I have a lot of customers who can't have nuts. My son's classroom is also nut-free, so this is an excellent way to bake nut-free items that are just as delicious as my coveted almond meal creations.

Why I don't always choose cassava flour...
As a personal preference, I find that cassava can have an overly flour-y flavor and/or a gummy texture if the recipe isn't juuuust right. And since I have a huge arsenal of other tried & true recipes with other flours, I tend to stick to what I know. However, that's just going to be a process of trial and error and up to your own tastebuds to decide what you think of it! If I had more time & opportunity to tweak recipes to my standards, it might definitely would play a larger role in my kitchen.

However, the main reason that it's not my go-to flour for all things is that my tummy doesn't react favorably certain starches (and cassava is much more carb-y and starchy than other grain free flours I use like almond meal or coconut flour), so I generally only choose it for specific recipes that I know it truly works the best in or if nut-free is required...

...except for this week, of course, when ev-er-y-thing was coming up OTTO'S! I'm not quite back in business yet AKA I have TIME on my hands, so I placed a big order to experiment with (it's only available on-line, currently) and was having too much fun as recipe after recipe turned out wonderfully! I ended up having a full blown bake-a-thon to stock our freezer with lunch box options. Below, you'll find the links to the recipes that I tried (and the Little Piggies loved).

Nut-Free Banana Bread by Merit + Fork

(topped with Enjoy Life Foods chocolate mini-chips) 

This loaf turned out great. The recipe is simple and the final product is moist and springy with great flavor. I used 1/2 the sugar and supplemented with some granulated stevia. So it sweet enough for dessert, minus all most the sugar.  I also used coconut oil instead of butter or ghee. 

After the banana bread turned out so well, I wanted to try something a little more seasonal to say "HELLOOOOO, SEPTEMBER!". But instead of a loaf, I wanted some mini-muffins for on-the-go breakfasts, snacks, and lunches without (most of) the mess of a slice of a loaf. The result was a perfect cake/bread hydrid and just the right size for the lunch box. 

NOTE: The recipe uses ginger because I was out of cinnamon. Feel free to use a pumpkin pie spice. 

Ginger Pumpkin Bread [mini-muffins]

What you need:

6 T room temperature palm shortening (or butter)

150 g cassava flour or approx 1 cup + 1 T with a "scoop and sweep" method

*use weight for best results

1/2 t baking soda

1 t ginger (or spices of your choice)

1/2 t sea salt

1/2 cup to 1 cup coconut palm sugar (or granulated sugar of choice) 

*you can supplement up to 1/2 of the sugar with a granulated stevia

1/2 can pumpkin puree

2 large eggs

What you do:

Preheat oven to 375 (or 350 if not at high altitude. Use convect back if you have that option)

Whisk wet ingredients in a medium to large bowl. 

Slowly whisk dry ingredients into the wet mixture. 

Bake in mini-muffin tins for 10-15 minutes or when cooked through and spring back to the touch. 

Makes approx 30 mini-muffins. 

Yeast Free Paleo Sandwich Bread by Cook it up Paleo

Even if there was nothing else (which isn't the case, but hypothetically speaking..), THIS bread would be the sole reason for me to continue to stock Otto's Natural Cassava Flour in my pantry.   I'm no bread baker, but I've tried quite a few recipes in my day with quite a few A LOT of different ingredients/flours and nothing has come close to this. 

The only flour in this recipe is cassava. There is no yeast, no proofing or rising or kneading. You don't even need a stand mixer. Just ONE bowl and you can mix everything sufficiently by hand. It's springy and soft, like a wheat sandwich bread, with a barely there crust. Yep! THIS is my kind of bread. And while we are not a bread obsessed family, I think I can feel OK about stocking my freezer with slices of this. 

Bottom line: 

Otto's Cassava Flour, when used in a great recipe, will yield great results and is totally worth the extra starch and carbs (if you can handle it). It's as close the taste and texture of traditional wheat flour that you're gonna get with grain & gluten-free baking. It's also nut-free for an added bonus. 

Otto's Naturals has FREE SHIPPING on all orders and offers a variety of size bags, making it very reasonable to be able to try this flour to see if it's for you. 

You may also like...

Double Chocolate Mug Cake [gluten-free, paleo & vegan]

Tortillas [gluten-free, paleo & vegan]  

*I like my tortillas slightly thinner and don't follow this recipe exactly, but it's still great! And if you make them big enough, you cook a batch and then stuff them with whatever you want to fry up empanada style in some hot oil. They get crispy on the outside but still remain chewy. 

Cassava Flour Dough

*Jennifer from predominantlypaleo.com is the "Yuca Queen" and actually works with the whole root. She gives the whole run-down on using the whole yuca vs flour on her blog!