Definition of Potato Flour

Potato flour is made from the entire potato, not just the starch.

With potato flour on your pantry shelf, you can add versatility to your cooking. One perk is the moisture it adds to baked goods. Potato flour is a heavier flour than most so a little goes a long way; it is becoming easier to find these days -- large supermarkets and some health food stores now stock it and, like almost everything else, you can order it online. Does this Spark an idea?

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How It's Made
- To make potato flour, the potato is cooked, cooled, dried and then ground almost into potato dust. Potato flour is made from the entire potato once it has been dehydrated. Potato flour is often confused with potato starch flour but they are different products. The latter is a type of flour made only from the starch of a potato. Potato starch flour is more dense and much whiter than potato flour. Many people confuse the two or believe they are the same product but if used in the same recipe, the two dishes will have completely different outcomes. On bakery shelves, you will find potato flour as an ingredient in potato hot dog buns, potato hamburger buns and potato bread.
Potato Flour Versus Potato Starch Flour When Cooking
- As potato flour is heavier and denser than potato starch flour, baking with the two flours will produce different results. If you make biscuits, for example, and everything else is the same, the biscuits made with potato starch flour will be much lighter and airier than the ones made with potato flour. If you normally use all-purpose flour in your baking, all-purpose isn't as heavy as potato flour so substituting potato flour will give you a denser product.
Uses of Potato Flour
- Potato flour can be added to potato-based recipes to increase the potato taste. It can be mixed with other types of flour when baking bread products. It is an ideal thickener for any liquid-based food such as stew, soup, sauce or gravy. When used in this way, it thickens the liquid without changing the texture or flavor of the dish. Potato flour can be used as a substitute for cornstarch. One note of caution though -- if the liquid is boiled too long after the potato flour thickener is added, the texture can turn gummy and the potato flour will lose its ability to thicken.
Kosher Potato Flour
- Potato flour is often found in a Jewish kitchen, especially during Passover. When creating food during the seven or eight days of the Jewish holiday, potato flour replaces wheat flour as grains are not allowed during that time. Potato flour is used when making dumplings or a sponge cake, for example. To achieve a particular texture, potato flour may be mixed with other non-grain flours.
Gluten and Wheat-free Baking
- For people who are on gluten-free or wheat-free diets due to food sensitivities or other reasons, potato flour is usually a staple on their pantry shelf. As they can't use grain flours, a mix of potato flour and white rice flour or tapioca flour is used as a substitute for self-rising all-purpose flour.
Nutritional Information
- One cup of potato flour has 571 calories, 0.5 grams of fat and 9.4 grams of dietary fiber. For comparison's sake, all-purpose white flour has 400 calories per cup, no fat and less than one gram of dietary fiber. The potato flour is the winner if you are looking to up the fiber in your diet.