Moon Rabbit Premium Cassava Flour, 32 Ounce

This is a really high quality cassava flour for a GREAT price--almost 6 dollars cheaper than others and a much more quality product. I've been playing around with this flour, and I've found it to be a great substitute for wheat flour, especially by weight. I've made muffins, pizza crust, pancakes, and cookies with it using traditional recipes, and all of them have turned out great. I love that I can use this flour as a stand-alone product instead of needing four or five different gluten free flours to create an all-purpose blend. As with all gluten free flours, there is a learning curve, but for cassava flour it seems to be way less steep than some others.

I've been following a lot of paleo blogs that recommend Otto's cassava flour, but I couldn't really justify paying that price. I decided to try Moon Rabbit's version instead. The hype is that cassava flour is cup for cup with wheat flour. I've fallen for that once too often with other gluten free flours, and decided I would test this out only on recipes in which cassava flour had already been tested.The first recipe was for biscuits. It turned out dry but didn't taste too bad. I had a similar experience with gingersnaps. The dark chocolate brownie recipe from another blog was terrible texture-wise. The blondies I made next were the first recipe that I really liked without caveats. The next recipe I tried was for irish soda bread. By this time I wised up to the fact that I couldn't blindly follow the recipes. The recipe was supposed to form a kneadable, not-too-sticky dough, with a ratio of equal parts flour (2 cups) to liquid (1 3/4 cup water and 1/4 cup maple syrup) as well as 1/2 cup fat. I added the sweetener and the first cup of water. It formed a batter and then as I kept mixing, I guess the flour hydrated and it actually turned into a soft dough. I then started slowly adding the remaining water which was a mistake. I ended up having to add extra flour. The end result was a very tasty, slightly sweet raisin-studded bread. It was also very dense, but in the best sense of the word. The final recipe I tried was a paleo/AIP flatbread made with white sweet potato, cassava flour, arrowroot flour, oil and salt. This was my favorite recipe and I've made it three times now, the last time with Otto's for comparison. It made for a smooth, beautiful dough each time and the final product stayed flexible even after storing in the fridge. I've shaped the dough into disks with my hand or with a tortilla press to get them flatter. I just broke down and purchased a bag of Otto's. I had so many early failures, that I wanted to compare whether this was based on differences between the two products. Both products smelled similar to me. I preferred Otto's packaging (wider opening) and labeling. I don't understand the "per recipe" description on the Moon Rabbit nutritional information.As mentioned, I made the flatbread and I also repeated the soda bread, this time with less water and honey replaced the maple syrup. The flatbread was a little chewier with Otto's which I didn't like, but the soda bread tasted much better. The Otto's bread seemed a little wetter on the inside like it hadn't finished cooking, but that effect went away after cooling. Bottom line, I'm inclined to believe both products are similar and the problems I had earlier were with the recipes not the flour.

Since I pretty much quit eating grains, my biggest issue was: how in the world am I going to live without bread, pizza, pancakes, biscuits etc? I love to bake and I love pretty much anything made with dough. I figured out a solution to my pancake problem, by creating a recipe based on Arrowroot flour and they turned out great. Check out my review for Bob's Red Mill's Arrowroot Flour for the recipe. However, that flour is not going to work for other recipes, at least not by itself and it is definitely not the perfect replacement for wheat flour.I have read numerous reviews and recipes using Cassava Flour. Most people buy Otto's Cassava Flour, which is almost double the price. I read the reviews for Moon Rabbit and it seemed that cassava flour is cassava flour, so you don't really need to pay double for the same product. I decided to go with this brand, especially since I didn't know how it was going to turn out and didn't want to waste a lot of money. It took a while before I finally decided to try it. I recently purchased a waffle maker and decided that waffles would be my first attempt with the cassava flour.I read that it is the perfect replacement for wheat flour and you just replace the wheat in any recipe with cassava and bam.. you have magic. So that's what I did. I used a classic buttermilk recipe for waffles. I followed the recipe and the batter was slightly too thick, so I decided to use some sparkling water. That also helps make the waffles fluffier. For some reason I did not expect them to rise much and be too fluffy, but they did. They fluffed up just like regular waffles.I like my waffles light and fluffy, while my husband likes them dark and crispy. While I was able to get them crispy, they did not stay crispy much longer after they were done. To make them crispy again I had to reheat them in the oven for a couple of minutes. My husband was ecstatic. He couldn't believe they were grain-free waffles. We served them with homemade whipped cream, a bit of butter and honey and fresh blueberries.Now, here is the part where I wasn't exactly over the top about this. It has a pretty strong smell. It was actually bothering me a bit as they were cooking. I can't really compare the smell to anything else, but it's there. And it's not that nice sweet smell of regular waffles. It also has a distinct taste, but I got used to it pretty quickly. With that being said, I don't think it is the perfect replacement for wheat flour. It tastes different and the baked / cooked product has a different texture. There might not be a perfect replacement for white flour though. But since I want to stick to a grain-free diet, I will continue to use this flour. Like I said, I got used to the taste and the smell and my husband didn't even notice it.I will try to bake buttermilk biscuits soon, so I will be back with more photos.