Premium Gluten Free All-purpose Cassava Flour for baking & cooking / Paleo / Vegan / 100% natural / Preservative-free / Without additives

My wife has been diagnosed as Coeliac for over 15 years, and so we have either bought or are aware of most gluten free flours on the market. This was a new one on us, however. The 500g of cassava flour comes packed in a resealable (zip-lock style) bag, which is handy, and to test it out we decided to follow a recipe from the NeoFlour website, so there should be no mistakes. The recipe we chose was a simple one for pancakes, which in this case turned out to be what I would call "drop scones" and not as I had thought, crepes. I've attached photographs to show the batter (nice and creamy yellow) and the pancakes during and at the end of cooking.The flour mixed easily with no lumps, and the resulting pancakes looked great. The recipe did call for maple syrup, which we didn't have, so we substituted golden syrup. I guess the idea is that it adds sweetness and flavour, as all the information I've read leads me to understand that cassava flour itself is tasteless (which is put forward as being a positive thing rather than a negative one).And it's true, there wasn't a lot of taste, but we smothered them in more golden syrup and they were very enjoyable indeed. Nice consistency and texture, not too dry and not too wet, in fact we couldn't complain at all. In future we would perhaps add something else like blueberries, or apple or banana just to give it a bit more flavour.The only thing is, we've had lots of similar pancakes in the past which have been made from regular GF flour, and they are no different. Regular flours can be bought for around a quarter of the price of cassava flour and so unless you have a specific health problem (other than coeliac disease) which requires you to have this then I can't see why anyone would buy it on a regular basis. Maybe there are other recipes using cassava flour which are so irresistible you'd be foolish NOT to buy it, but as I say, we've been doing gluten free cookery in this house for a decade and a half and so far we've not had any major problems using the plain old shop-bought stuff.So yes, it's an excellent product. It really is. But I'm struggling to find a good reason to buy it at the current price after this bag is finished.

Cassava is a Brazilian root, rich in carbohydrates, calcium, and vitamins. It is used boiled, or in stews, and also, as in this case, in the form of flour.When I opened it, I noticed that it was very very white in color, more than normal flour.It also had a smell I must say not very pleasant. I was in the process of making a birthday cake and, considering the smell, I was scared that it wouldn't come very tasty.I wanted, however, to try.I mixed it with eggs, sugar, and cocoa to make a sponge cake, the base for my birthday cake.I made it and put it in the fridge. We enjoyed the cake, very good and appreciated by all.At the end of the evening, when the guests had left, I remembered I had made the sponge with cassava. All this to say, the smell is a bit unpleasant, but it was not noticed at all that there was another type of flour inside.Quite higher price than normal flours. I am aware of the fact that gluten-free food costs more, I personally do not have gluten intolerances, so I do not need to buy this type of flour, but for those who are gluten intolerant, I would recommend it highly.

Manioc or cassava flour is different from tapioca which is usually just the starch extract rather than the whole root. It is used to improve the texture of gluten-free baking. I tried this flour out using one of the excellent recipes (complete with video) on the manufacturers' website, neoflour.com. My choice was a quick and simple recipe 'sweet corn cake' which combined cornflour with this cassava flour, olive oil and coconut milk. I added lots of baking powder, as instructed, and cooked in a shallow tin on a hot Aga plate. The result was a wonderful, fluffy, structured sponge cake, rather like the ones I used to eat for school lunch in London when I was little. You would not have known it was wheat-free, far more structured than my other gluten free cooking, and tasty. The video on the recipe website was really helpful, as when I put the mixture together, I could not believe that it was intended to be quite as liquid as it was, and added a little more cornflour for luck, but in the end got the consistency as runny as the video showed. It worked!£6.99 is a lot for a 500g bag of flour, and I suspect if you are not coeliac you can source a perfectly good bag of cassava flour in shops in London and other UK cities for far less. But this manufacturer provides assurances that the product is packed in a 100% gluten free environment in Belgium and that there is no risk of contamination.Cassava flour is now firmly on my shopping list for gluten free cooking.

At first, I was really impressed with this, it’s far more expensive than any flour I have ever used, which isn’t in its favour. However, it did mean I had high expectations, and they were partly met. I used it to make pancakes, following my standard recipe. I don’t add raising agent to my pancakes, although the recommendation is that this is done with this particular flour . Plain flour is the standard for pancakes.The pancakes were great, some of the best I’ve done, I have a very good pancake pan, and the light batter mix was absolutely fine, it didn’t stick and the pancakes were perfect. I then used it simply mixed with milk and a little salt to make flatbreads. This was far less successful. I’ve read criticisms of gluten-free flour that any pastry made with them breaks up and is near impossible to use. This was certainly my experience with the flatbreads. I couldn’t get them to roll out at all, even with a dusting of conventional wheat flour.I was going to try it with yeast, for a standard small gluten-free loaf, but I am not going to bother.I will keep it for what it does best, which is pancakes, perhaps I might try making crumpets with it, as the pancakes had a very lacy, light appearance. It struck me that this would be a good choice for crumpets.4 out of 5 stars then. It is very expensive, and I don’t think that price is justified.