Answers.com

cornstarch

 
Dictionary: corn·starch   (kôrn'stärch') pronunciation
 
n.

Starch prepared from corn grains, used industrially and as a thickener in cooking.


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a word or phrase...
All Community Q&A Reference topics
 
Food Lover's Companion: cornstarch
Top

A dense, powdery "flour" obtained from the endosperm portion of the corn kernel. Cornstarch is most commonly used as a thickening agent for puddings, sauces, soups, etc. Because it tends to form lumps, cornstarch is generally mixed with a small amount of cold liquid to form a thin paste before being stirred into a hot mixture. Mixing it with a granular solid like granulated sugar will also help it disperse into a liquid. Sauces thickened with cornstarch will be clear, rather than opaque, as with flour-based sauces. However, they will thin if cooked too long or stirred too vigorously. Cornstarch is also used in combination with flour in many European cake and cookie recipes; it produces a finer-textured, more compact product than flour alone. In British recipes, cornstarch is referred to as cornflour.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: cornstarch
Top
cornstarch, material made by pulverizing the ground, dried residue of corn grains after preparatory soaking and the removal of the embryo and the outer covering. It is used as laundry starch, in sizing paper, in making adhesives, and in cooking. Dextrin, corn syrup, and corn sugar are produced by the hydrolysis of cornstarch. See starch.


 
WordNet: cornstarch
Top
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: starch prepared from the grains of corn; used in cooking as a thickener
  Synonym: cornflour


 
Wikipedia: Cornstarch
Top
Products treated with cornstarch

Cornstarch, or cornflour, is the starch of the corn (maize) grain. It is also grown from the endosperm of the corn kernel. It has a distinctive appearance and feel when mixed raw with water or milk, giving easily to gentle pressure but resisting sudden pressure (see Non-Newtonian fluid). It is usually included as an anti-caking agent in powdered sugar (10X or confectioner's sugar). For this reason, recipes calling for powdered sugar often call for at least light cooking to remove the raw cornstarch taste. Cornstarch or cornflour is also used as a thickening agent in soups and liquids. As the starch is heated by the liquid, the molecule chains unravel, allowing them to collide with other starch chains to form a mesh - thus slowing the movement of water molecules. This results in thickening of the liquid, be it soup, stock or other culinary liquids.

Contents

Manufacture

The corn is steeped for 30 to 48 hours, which ferments it a little. The germ is separated from the endosperm and those two components are ground separately (still soaked). Next the starch is removed from each by washing. It is separated from the gluten and other substances, mostly in hydrocyclones and centrifuges, and dried. (The residue from every stage is used in animal feed and other products.) Finally the starch may be modified for specific purposes.[1]

Other

Amylophagia is a condition involving the compulsive consumption of excessive amounts of purified starch, often cornstarch.[2]

Other names and varieties

References


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food Lover's Companion. Food Lover's Companion. Copyright © 2001 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cornstarch" Read more

 

Mentioned in