Comparing potato starch and corn starch

Starch is dif­fer­ent. Of course, since Sovi­et times, most house­wives have been accus­tomed to only one vari­ety of this ingre­di­ent — pota­to — but now you can eas­i­ly find more exot­ic options on store shelves. For exam­ple, corn. And despite the fact that these vari­eties are very sim­i­lar in chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, they have extreme­ly dif­fer­ent effects.

Let’s fig­ure out how pota­to starch dif­fers from corn starch and what is bet­ter to use in cook­ing.

Potato starch

Pota­to starch is one of the most com­mon ingre­di­ents in the so-called “home cook­ing”. It is active­ly added to kissels, sauces, pas­tries, creams and oth­er prod­ucts. It thick­ens quick­ly and forms pastes with almost any liq­uid.

The main char­ac­ter­is­tics of pota­to starch are:

1. Fine crys­talline form. The pow­der char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly “crunch­es” (like snow on a frosty day) when rubbed between fin­gers or squeezed;

2. High vis­cos­i­ty. The pastes it cre­ates can be so vis­cous that they won’t even drip off a spoon. Using this starch in large quan­ti­ties, you can pre­pare jel­ly, which will be sim­i­lar in tex­ture to jel­ly based on gelatin or agar-agar;

3. High trans­paren­cy. Dilut­ed pow­der does not change the col­or of water or fruit juice when it forms a paste with them. That is why it is per­fect for use as a thick­en­er in dish­es such as jel­ly and sauces;

4. Char­ac­ter­is­tic after­taste. This ingre­di­ent has a slight­ly pro­nounced, but still notice­able after­taste. This is impor­tant to con­sid­er when prepar­ing dish­es from it.

Being a thick­en­ing agent that also clumps when heat­ed above boil­ing point, this ingre­di­ent is rarely used in bak­ing bis­cuit or pas­try. But for sand, it fits per­fect­ly. Such pas­tries become more crumbly and less rigid.

How­ev­er, when prepar­ing sauces, glazes or, for exam­ple, jel­ly, it is very impor­tant not to over­heat it. Then the tex­ture is irre­versibly destroyed — and the fin­ished dish becomes too liq­uid or unpleas­ant­ly “rub­ber”.

So, let’s sum up.

In addi­tion, pota­to starch con­tains gluten. This is impor­tant to con­sid­er for peo­ple who fol­low a gluten-free diet. It also slight­ly changes the com­po­si­tion and tex­ture of the prod­uct — it becomes more “heavy”, so dish­es with an airy tex­ture based on this ingre­di­ent can­not be pre­pared.

Corn starch

Corn starch, unlike its pota­to coun­ter­part, does not con­tain gluten. There­fore, it is suit­able for con­sump­tion on a gluten-free diet. How­ev­er, at the same time, its qual­i­ties as a thick­en­er can “suf­fer” a lit­tle.

Indeed, corn­starch is not a very good thick­en­er. You can’t even cook jel­ly on it — the dish will turn out to be vis­cous, but liq­uid. But it is well suit­ed for some creams, sauces and soups in which it is not nec­es­sary to achieve increased vis­cos­i­ty. In addi­tion, this ingre­di­ent is wide­ly used in bak­ing — it makes bis­cuit and pas­try dough more airy.

The main char­ac­ter­is­tics of corn­starch are:

1. Pow­der form. As a result, it becomes indis­tin­guish­able from flour either in appear­ance or tex­ture in its dry form. This is very impor­tant to take into account dur­ing stor­age, so as not to acci­den­tal­ly con­fuse the two ingre­di­ents;

2. Low vis­cos­i­ty. Pastes based on it retain a liq­uid form and begin to resem­ble egg white in tex­ture. When heat­ed, they sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase in size, become elas­tic, but crum­ple very much;

3. Low trans­paren­cy. Pastes based on this prod­uct become sim­i­lar to dilut­ed milk. It is also impor­tant to take this into account when prepar­ing dish­es, espe­cial­ly jel­ly made from light or slight­ly col­or­ing fruits like apri­cots;

4. Taste­less. As an ingre­di­ent, this pow­der does not have any taste, so it is not felt in the fin­ished dish.

At home, corn­starch is com­mon­ly used in bak­ing. It is added to bis­cuit and pas­try doughs to cre­ate a lighter, airy tex­ture. It is also used in the prepa­ra­tion of some creams, espe­cial­ly cus­tards.

So, let’s sum up.

It is worth con­sid­er­ing that it is not suit­able for cook­ing dish­es that involve high-tem­per­a­ture pro­cess­ing (except for bak­ing, of course). It increas­es in size and crum­ple when heat­ed.

Waxy corn starch

It is worth men­tion­ing sep­a­rate­ly anoth­er vari­ety of this prod­uct, obtained from wax vari­eties of corn. It dif­fers from the usu­al chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion and a very high con­tent of amy­lopectin (“bind­ing” car­bon).

That is why the paste obtained from it has a hard­er tex­ture. It is com­pa­ra­ble to that pre­pared from pota­toes. How­ev­er, the inher­ent stick­i­ness of the corn vari­ant does not dis­ap­pear.

Usu­al­ly the vari­ety of corn from which this prod­uct is obtained is indi­cat­ed on the pack­ag­ing. Pow­ders from wax vari­eties are usu­al­ly quite expen­sive, there­fore, in the absence of con­traindi­ca­tions to the use of gluten, it is bet­ter to replace them with a pota­to option.

On the oth­er hand, it is used in some types of sports nutri­tion, because it is an excel­lent source of com­plex car­bo­hy­drates, but it does not con­tain lac­tose, sug­ar, or sim­i­lar prod­ucts. In sports nutri­tion, it is used to increase the ener­gy of a trainee or ath­lete, and also pro­motes mus­cle recov­ery.

Comparison

Let’s com­pare both of these ingre­di­ents and deter­mine which one is bet­ter.

Thus, the main advan­tage of corn­starch is that it does not con­tain gluten. But pota­to has the best qual­i­ties as a thick­en­er.

And obtained from wax vari­eties of corn or wax ripeness, it is used in sports nutri­tion as a source of car­bo­hy­drates.