Cassava Flour vs Tapioca Starch

The short answer: same plant, completely different ingredients. Both come from the cassava root (yuca/manioc). Cassava flour is the whole peeled root, dried and milled — fibre and all — and it’s the closest thing the GF pantry has to an all-purpose wheat-like flour. Tapioca starch is only the extracted starch: stretch, chew, gloss and browning, but no structure of its own. One can carry a recipe; the other seasons its texture.

Side by side

Which should I use?

• Grain-free tortillas, wraps, flatbreads → cassava flour, solo. Our 4-ingredient cassava wraps show exactly how it handles.
• Chew and stretch in bread or pizza blends → tapioca starch, 10–25% of the blend. It’s what fakes the pull that gluten used to give.
• Cheese bread with that elastic crumb → tapioca, no contest: pão de queijo is built on it.
• Glossy fruit fillings and stir-fry sauces → tapioca starch; it thickens clear and survives a spell in the fridge.
• Brownies with a fudgy bite → cassava blends shine: our cassava & almond brownies.

The swap rule

Never 1:1 in either direction. Recipe says cassava, you have tapioca → you’d be swapping a whole flour for pure starch; the dough will collapse into goo. Recipe says tapioca, you have cassava → you lose the stretch and gloss; cornstarch or potato starch get closer for thickening, nothing truly replaces it for chew. The wider logic is in Swaps & Adaptations.