Benjamin Henion

As I keep on trying new ingredients and techniques in the kitchen, I purchased some fun molecular gastronomy common items from Willpowder .com. One of these is tapioca maltodextrin , pictured here. It is a light, fluffy white powder that does some cool stuff. Unlike any other starches, tapioca maltodextrin has been modified to thicken fats instead of water. This is cool because we are able make powders out of oils, butters, yogurts and so on. If you know me, bacon fat, duck fat and rendered sausage fat are all in line for the transformation. Basically all you are doing is combining the fat and the starch to the correct consistency so that you are able to push the mixture through a tami and sprinkle it or spoon it onto a plate for garnish. This example shows a huilacoche butter, which I have melted, mixed with the tapioca maltodextrin and turned into a powder. I had no idea how much of this powder it would actually take. I found several websites that say 10% can be enough. I found...

These are two results when using tapioca maltodextrin. The grayish one is the Huitlacoche Butter Powder, and the bottom, a very delicate fluffy olive oil powder. No question, I need to work on consistancy, but for the first time using the ingredient, I am happy.