INULIN

What is inulin?

It is a soluble vegetable fiber that is stored in plants as an energy reserve.

Where is inulina?

About 15% of plants use inulin as a nutritional reserve in the roots and tubers, we can find it:

in tubers: Jerusalem artichokes and salsify
in the chicory root
in the prized white truffle mushroom
n the agave and dandelion plant
in vegetables: onion, garlic, asparagus, leek, tomato, artichokes, asparagus
in fruit: bananas, apples and kiwi
in cereals such as: oats, wheat, rye and barley.

On the market we find it in powder form, easy to dispense.

In what doses can it be taken inulina?

The daily intake of powdered inulin as a food supplement or added to cooking preparations is between 3 and 10 grams (always to be agreed with your doctor).

What does it taste like inulina?

Has a neutral taste, with no aftertaste, does not affect our recipes in the kitchen.

How do you used inulin in the kitchen?

It is diluted in one of the liquid ingredients present in the recipe we are preparing, for example: water, milk, eggs.

In dairy products:

Made particularly creamy by inulin presence among the ingredients.

For example: we often find it in ice cream, in a dose of 2-4% on the total weight, because it makes it stable to thermal shocks, also allowing the reduction of the dose of fat and sugar without compromising the greedy creaminess.

And for those who can’t eat a classic ice cream?

Inulin can also be very useful when preparing fruit ice cream, for example of banana, which since it is free of dairy products, sugars and fats does not retain its initial creaminess after being in the freezer.

Adding 2% of inulin powder, on the weight of the chosen fruit, makes healthy fruit ice-cream perfectly conservable.

In pastry:

It is used as an ingredient when you need structure, but you don’t want to overdo it with sugar.

Thanks to this property inulin is also used for savory pastries, as in the case of salted meringues, savory shortcrusts and more, because it gives the savory pastry products the same consistency as sweet pastry products.
Especially in friable gluten-free pastry:

it makes the consistency of the mixture buttery and friable,
increases the workability making the doughs so malleable that they can be thinly spread. We will thus be able to make thin and crunchy shells for tartlets and tarts; light and crumbly crackers and wafers.

The dose of inulin for baking products without yeast is between 1-1.5% on the weight of the flour that will be used in the dough.

In leavened bakery products:

When they contain natural or compressed yeast, inulin is not used.

Being inulin a carbohydrate, therefore a sugar, it is “eaten” by the yeast itself and disappears, therefore it does not influence either from the structural or nutritional point of view on the leavened bakery product.

In flat, unleavened breads:

Like tortillas, tortillas and other doughs that must be thinly spread, inulin is fundamental in gluten-free recipes with doughs that break easily when spread in thin sheets.

Inulin favors the union of the ingredients in the dough, and the resistance of the dough when they are spread, even in this case the dose of inulin is between 1-1.5% on the weight of the flour that will be used in the dough.