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New Rice Flour Mixes Available To Make Yummy Treats
By Sandra Avant
June 8, 2016
Consumers can now buy double chocolate chip brownie, chocolate chip cookie and lemon poppy seed muffin mixes made from a rice flour blend developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists that reduces oil absorption during cooking.
The products are available under the brand name Choice Batter® from CrispTek LLC, which released its first product—a rice-based frying batter—made with the Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) patented special blend of rice flours. Retired chemist Frederick Shih and chemist Kim Daigle, with the Food Processing and Sensory Quality Research Unit in New Orleans, Louisiana, developed the technology.
Nutritionally and functionally, rice ingredients are equal or superior to their wheat-based counterparts, according to Shih. Research has shown that rice-based batters absorb 50 percent less oil than traditional wheat batters. Rice ingredients also are gluten free, which is important for people who have celiac disease, which causes an autoimmune reaction to wheat proteins.
CrispTek founder Wayne Swann obtained a license for the technology and signed a cooperative research and development agreement with ARS. The rice blend can be used for grilling, baking and frying.
The new sweet products are easy to make. You only have to add water. They are also free of the eight most common food allergens such as peanuts, dairy foods and soy, according to Swann. The products have no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.
Over the years, ARS scientists have developed a series of low-fat-uptake and gluten-free food products, including batters and donuts.
Read more about this research in the June 2016 issue of AgResearch.
ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.