Tapioca is made from the root of the cassava plant, a shrub native to South America (in one South American indigenous language, cassava is known as tipióka, leading to the English word tapioca). The cassava root is very starchy but gluten free. The root can be processed into tapioca pearls, tapioca sticks, tapioca flakes, and tapioca flour.
According to Nuts Online, tapioca flour is one of the most popular thickeners, and rightly so. It thickens at a low temperature and retains its consistency when frozen, making it easy to use in many recipes. Tapioca flour thickens so quickly that it can sometimes be used to correct the thickness of sauces right before serving!
When used as a thickener, tapioca flour becomes a clear, glossy gel – the perfect sheen for your dish. It is starchy and chewy, with a neutral taste that won’t compete with the other flavors in a recipe. Because tapioca flour is a fine powder, it will dissolve with a uniform consistency, unlike tapioca pearls.
Tapioca flour can be used to thicken muffins, cake, pancakes, soups, sauces, gravy, and puddings. It can be added as a sweetener to bread made with rice and millet flour or used as a substitute for other thickeners, like cornstarch. There are several places you can purchase this product on line. If you don’t want to order on line, most local grocery stores carry tapioca flour for a reasonable price.
The second ingredient that I am using is unrefined coconut palm sugar. Coconut palm sugar is naturally low on the glycemic index (GI about 35), unrefined and high nutrient. A healthy alternative to high fructose sweeteners and processed cane sugars; Gluten free and Kosher. Coconut Palm Sugar has a soft caramel flavor, similar to light brown sugar; Dissolves in liquid. Read this article to learn more about this product at Big Tree Farms.
So I began to do some research on this product and I came across this really interesting article from Tropical traditions and thought I would share it. It is always good to know all sides of a story or in this case product/ingredient, right? Read both these articles, I think you might be a little surprised at what you might learn! You will have to make the decision if you want to use coconut palm sugar or not. I have given two different sweetener choices, so this recipe will work either way! Want to discuss these articles in more detail? Let’s start a discussion in the comment section below this post. I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts on this product.
** After I posted this post, one of our followers found this article about coconut palm sugar. I think it is important to read this article as well from Coconut Secret. (Thanks, Colleen!)
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Organic Blueberry Muffin Recipe
Prep Time: 10 minutes- Cook Time: 23 minutes
- Total Time: 33 minutes
Yield: 6 Jumbo Muffins 1x
Category: breakfast
Method: baking
Cuisine: american
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
This is a great recipe for healthy blueberry muffins.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/3 cup tapioca flour
- 1/4 tsp unrefined sea salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 2 tbsp unrefined coconut palm sugar or 1 tbsp raw honey (your choice)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 4 eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil (melted and cooled)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup frozen organic wild blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- In a small bowl mix together, coconut flour, tapioca flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
- In a larger bowl whisk together eggs, coconut oil, unsweetened applesauce, coconut palm sugar, and vanilla extract.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
- Fold in wild blueberries.
- Grease a muffin tin with coconut oil.
- Pour batter into muffin pan, filling each muffin almost to the top.
- Bake for 23 minutes or until lightly browned.
Notes
Nutrition Info: Calories: 205.9 Fat: 13.1g Carbohydrates: 18.6g Protein: 4.9g
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Jumbo Muffin
After reading these two articles, I have to say, I most likely won’t be using coconut palm sugar very often. What are your thought?
This looks delicious.Thanks for the product education along with the recipe.I use cassava a lot in soup. I never realized that tapioca flour came from it!Have a good weekend.
I am sad that the coconut palm sugar is sacrificing coconut trees! Darn! And I was thinking that this was perhaps a gift from God. I cannot trade my coconut oil to get coconut palm sugar.
I like being able to know how I can impact something before jumping in. I wish information like this was readily available for every new product. Thank you for taking the time to research this.
I think over time, we’ll find this is a fluctuation of supply and demand. Coconut sugar and coconut water don’t kill the trees. They just prevent harvesting a mature coconut for producing coconut oil. If there is increased demand for all three products, I would think that smart growers have already planted more coconut trees and since they grow very quickly, any shortages of any coconut products would be remedied.
Halle, my husband and I have been using coconut sugar for about 6 month or so now and I was shocked to read the articles you linked above. My husband then went on line and did some research and found this article that you may want to read.
coconutsecret.com/sap%20vs.oil%20production.html
Here are a few point form things we found:
– coconut sugar productions only account for single digit percentages of total coco product production
– Snipping the flower to harvest syrup does prevent the trees from producing coconuts on other stems.
– Syrup tapping can be ceased and a new flower will eventually form, allowing coconut production.
– Coconut sugar production requires specialized equipment and is much more expensive and labour intensive than coconut meat production.
– Often coconut sugar production is done on older tree’s (up to 50 yrs old) that have slowed in coconut meat production.
– Researchers have grown coconuts from the same bunch/stem as syrup production. Therefor the syrup production does not harm the tree.
– Coconut syrup production is required to be collected twice a day where as coconut meat is collected every 2 – 4 weeks. Often trees around buildings, commercial devel. or processing areas and homes are tapped for syrup to avoid injuries from falling coconuts and to maintain to these larger shade providing trees.
Hope the article above and the points made help people become more informed. It’s interesting when you really look into the people that write the articles and their motives.
@colleenpaton Thank You so much for all this information!! I agree Colleen, there are so many sides and view points. I appreciate the additional research you and your husband did on this topic 🙂
What are your thoughts? Thank You Colleen for bringing us additional reading on this subject! Read this article that Colleen posted. http://www.coconutsecret.com/sap%20vs.oil%20production.html
Hooray! I am relieved to know that we are not endangering coconut trees to get coconut sugar. I am going shopping for some tomorrow.
Colleen has done some additional research on coconut palm sugar and I thought you all might be interested in reading this additional article! http://www.coconutsecret.com/sap%20vs.oil%20production.html
I found some at Chamberlin’s. Bought three different kinds. One is full flavored, one mild, both the same brand, just different degrees of caramel taste, and one of a different brand. I tasted them all an hour ago and my blood sugar went up only 7 points. Not bad for 2 tsp of SUGAR!
To clarify: my blood sugar, an hour after ingesting the coconut palm sugar, is up only 7 points.