Gluten-free baked goods are an area where starches, particularly the clean label ones, shine. With no gluten present to provide structure, the varied functionality of starches can help fill that gap.
“While formulating gluten-free products can be challenging, there are very good alternatives to wheat in the form of specialty flours and texturizers that allow for the high quality of gluten-free bakery items meeting consumers’ needs in the areas of taste, texture, quality, label preference and nutrition,” said Marcelo Nichi, senior manager, marketing — texture, Ingredion.
Ingredion offers modified and native starch options for gluten-free depending on a baker’s need, including its Novation Prima 340 and 350, which are functional native starches made from corn starch. The company is also pursuing new solutions with rice and tapioca ingredients.
“Gluten-free is probably the bigger trend that we’ve seen,” said Michelle Kozora, technical service manager, Cargill. “ActiStar, a resistant starch, is a great tool to replace wheat flour, and you can move your product toward being gluten-free. In these applications, resistant starch is typically used in combination with rice flour to aid with full replacement of wheat flour and help manage the high cost of rice flour.”
Cargill’s ActiStar resistant starch can replace flour in gluten-free applications while also increasing dietary fiber content.
With a patented process, Manildra USA developed a wheat starch that falls below the Food and Drug Administration’s 20 p.p.m. requirement for gluten-free.
“This gluten-free wheat starch gives the preferred texture and mouthfeel of traditional bakery products,” said Brook Carson, vice-president of product development and marketing, Manildra USA. “GemStar 100GF provides a clean, bright white finished product with a slightly higher viscosity than native starch.”
