High quality cassava flour (HQCF) is simply unfermented cassava flour. It can be used as partial replacement for many bakery and pasta products. High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) can be used as an alternative for starch and other imported materials such as wheat flour in a variety of industries in many countries in Africa. Uses of HQCF include raw material for the production of glucose syrups, industrial alcohol and bakery products, the production of adhesives, as an extender for plywood glues and as a source of starch in textile sizing. Specifically;
• Bakery products - HQCF was used at levels of 10-35% in bakery products; popular in rural areas where consumers preferred the heavy cake like texture;
• Glucose syrups – A controlled process was developed for conversion of HQCF into sugar syrups with a range of dextrose equivalents to meet different end-user requirements using enzymes from plant seedlings;
• Industrial and potable alcohol – A system was developed for conversion of sugar syrup into ethyl alcohol for industrial or potable use;
• Adhesives - HQCF blended with soluble borax and caustic soda to produce Bauer type paperboard adhesive that could completely replace imported starch based materials. HQCF was used for complete substitution of wheat flour as an extender in urea and phenol formaldehyde resin plywood adhesives.
High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) suitable for partial substitution of wheat has been successfully produced at the Institute.
The Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi has demonstrated that bread and confectionaries baked with 5-40% High Quality Cassava Flour inclusion in wheat flour compared favourably with those baked with 100% wheat flour without any negative health implication.