ARTICLE: “The Significance of Starch” (excerpt from article)
By Charlotte Atchley, Editor
BakingBusiness.com

In the commercial food world, starches help baked goods on every front. They help dough and batter adapt to processing equipment. They improve texture and mouthfeel of a finished product. They even keep working well after a baked good has left the bakery and is sitting on a supermarket shelf or in a consumer’s pantry.

With so many options for starches it can be difficult to know which one will work best in a formula. Understanding the many functions of starches can solve several processing challenges.
“It ultimately depends on the application and the end product they’re trying to achieve,” said Carter Foss, technical service director, American Key Food Products.

Bakers need to consider the type of mixing, heat, sheeting and freezing their product goes through. All those processes have an impact on the batter or dough. Choose the right starch, and it will respond beautifully and protect the end product while the wrong starch will wilt right on the line.

Despite the limitations of native starches, many ingredient suppliers are developing native starches that can provide a similar level of functionality as their modified counterparts.
“Technology is getting clean label starches to perform better than they did in their infancy a few years back,” Mr. Foss said.

American Key Food Products uses alternative botanicals to enhance native starch functionality.
“We have flours and starches that aren’t on the normal radar: native pea starch and our proprietary cassava flour, which has a high tapioca starch content, and premium versions of white and brown rice flours,” Mr. Foss said.

The company recently introduced a new blend of cassava starches that can be used to bake a new range of baked products that have a distinctive, appealing texture.
American Key Food Products applied a gentle heating process that partially swells the starch to get a pre-gelatinized starch granule. This slight modification isn’t enough to change the starch’s classification on the ingredient list but delivers benefits to low-moisture applications such as cookies and gluten-free baked goods.

American Key Food Products uses alternative botanicals to enhance native starch functionality.

“We have flours and starches that aren’t on the normal radar: native pea starch and our proprietary cassava flour, which has a high tapioca starch content, and premium versions of white and brown rice flours,” Mr. Foss said.

The company recently introduced a new blend of cassava starches that can be used to bake a new range of baked products that have a distinctive, appealing texture.
American Key Food Products applied a gentle heating process that partially swells the starch to get a pre-gelatinized starch granule. This slight modification isn’t enough to change the starch’s classification on the ingredient list but delivers benefits to low-moisture applications such as cookies and gluten-free baked goods.