Flour is one of the basic ingredients of various food products that are often consumed by the public. Flour can be made from a variety of ingredients, such as rice, wheat, and cassava. Cassava or cassava can be processed into mocaf flour, tapioca flour, and gaplek flour. Although both are made from cassava, the three flours have several differences. Mocaf flour is an abbreviation of modified cassava flour. Cassava that is processed into mocaf flour is modified first, by means of microbial and enzymatic fermentation. Mocaf flour has a soft texture, has a white color, and does not have the distinctive aroma of cassava. Tapioca flour is pure starch obtained from the extraction of cassava, while gaplek flour is cassava which is cut into pieces and then dried in the sun, then mashed to become flour.
When viewed from the way it is made, mocaf flour, tapioca flour, and gaplek flour have clear differences. Mocaf flour is made by peeling and cutting cassava, then soaking it in an enzyme solution to maximize nutrition and make the cassava texture softer for one day, then dried and pounded to produce mocaf flour. Tapioca flour is made by milling cassava and then discarding the pulp, so that starch is obtained from the cassava, while gaplek flour is made from pulverized cassava (dried pieces of cassava).
Mocaf flour has different characteristics compared to tapioca flour and gaplek flour. Mocaf flour is made from all parts of the cassava tuber. In addition, mocaf flour also has a whiter color than gaplek flour and has a rougher texture than wheat flour, and does not have the aroma of cassava. In contrast to tapioca flour and gaplek flour, where tapioca flour only extracts starch from cassava. Tapioca flour also has a smoother texture than wheat flour, so it feels slippery in the hand and difficult to handle, while gaplek flour has a brownish white color and has a distinctive aroma.
When viewed from its use, mocaf flour also has a different function from tapioca flour and gaplek flour. Mocaf flour can be used as a substitute for wheat flour, because its texture is suitable for baked goods such as cookies, brownies, pies, it can even be used to make noodles, to analog rice. For cake products that expand, mocaf flour can be mixed with wheat flour. If it is used in products that are not too fluffy, then mocaf flour can substitute wheat flour. In contrast to tapioca flour, which does not clump easily, has high adhesiveness, and is not easily broken and damaged, making it suitable for making chewy products, such as meatballs, pempek, dumplings, and others. gaplek flour is generally used as a mixture of animal feed, but it can also be a mixture in making bread, cakes, and so on.
In terms of nutritional content, mocaf flour has 13% moisture content, 1% protein, 85-87% starch content, 1.9-3.4% fiber content, and 0.4-0.8% fat content. The nutrients contained are what make mocaf flour a substitute for wheat flour. Mocaf flour is also free of gluten (gluten free), so it is suitable for people who are allergic to gluten and people who are on a diet. In addition, mocaf flour also has a higher fiber content than gaplek flour and has better and faster digestibility than tapioca flour and gaplek flour. Tapioca flour has a protein content of 0.59%, 3.39% fat, 12.9% water, and 6.99% carbohydrates. Tapioca flour also has an amylose content of 20-27%. The gaplek flour has high carbohydrate content. In 100 grams of gaplek flour, 8820 grams of carbohydrates are contained, so it can be used as a substitute for rice in several areas.