Instant Clear Gel it's the “secret” ingredient you didn't know you needed. Bakers swear by this humble, seemingly simple powder, tossing it into fruit pie fillings or mixing it into their whipped cream. Just take a look at the impressive 5-star rating and reviews posted on product page to prove it: There, bakers share why they love it and all the ways they use it in their kitchen. One baker even declared it his favorite King Arthur product.
If you haven't cooked with ClearJel, you may be wondering what all the hype is about, how it works, and what exactly it is. Let us explain!
Photography by Kristin Teig; food styling by Liz Neily
What is Instant ClearJel?
Instant Clear Gel consists of only one ingredient: modified food starch. While modified food starch can be made from a variety of ingredients, including wheat, potatoes and tapioca, ClearJel is derived from corn that has been milled and processed to rank specific starches with certain desired gel properties.
The result is similar to cornstarch: a fine, powdered starch intended for thickening fruit pie fillings and smooth, creamy dessert fillings. But they are not the same. The proprietary grading process makes ClearJel more specialized than supermarket cornstarch: when used in the right amount, it prevents fruit fillings from having a rubbery or starchy texture or cloudy appearance, which can sometimes happen with starches. milled corn.
Instant ClearJel is not the same as similarly named products used for canning and preserving and should NO be used for this purpose. “Instant” is the key differentiator in the name, as this starch begins to swell or thicken as soon as it comes into contact with liquid – no heating required! This “cold swelling” property allows Instant ClearJel to be used in unbaked fillings such as mousse in this Raspberry Chocolate Mousse Cake.
While heating is not required for Instant ClearJel to work, it can get hot. It works beautifully on ours Apple pie, for example, where fruit is tossed together with Instant ClearJel, sugar and spices before being baked. Doing so thickens the juices and sets the inner structure of the pie, allowing it to hold its shape when sliced and not run, all without becoming too hard or sticky.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Liz Neily
So how do you use Instant ClearJel?
As the apple pie example above shows, one of Instant ClearJel's main uses is as a thickener for pie fillings—it's tossed with fruit along with other ingredients. Our proven pie thickener chart gives guidance on how much to use depending on the type of fruit in your pie: use more for fruits without a lot of thickening pectin (such as strawberries) and less for fruits with a high pectin content such as apples and blueberries.
The key to using Instant ClearJel is to mix it with sugar first. This step prevents clumping after it is added to the wet ingredients. To get technical, sugar controls the rate at which starch absorbs moisture. Without it, Instant ClearJel tends to absorb available liquid quickly, causing lumps in the mixture. Nobody needs them.
It is also important to add Instant ClearJel to liquid that is not too hot; otherwise, it will become too viscous too quickly, again leading to lumps. King Arthur Research and Development Specialist Frank Tegethoff offers instructions: “If the liquid to which it is first added is too hot to touch comfortably, it is too hot for Instant ClearJel.”
Instant ClearJel is best stored tightly closed in a cool, dry cupboard. While the freezer is a (very) cool and dry place, taking Instant ClearJel in and out of the freezer causes condensation on and inside the container, which can lead to clumping. For this reason, the freezer is not the best place to store it (unless it is already mixed with sugar and other ingredients, such as freeze and bake the pies).
Photography by Kristin Teig; food styling by Liz Neily
What else can Instant ClearJel do?
Thanks to its gelling properties, Instant ClearJel makes an excellent stabilizer for fillings and cream fillings. In ours Strawberry Mascarpone Tea Cake, for example, we call for Instant ClearJel in the mascarpone filling to prevent the cake from collapsing and give you neat, clean edges when you cut the cake. Similarly, if you need your homemade whipped cream to last longer, adding ClearJel along with sugar will prevent your soft, fluffy top from disintegrating into a sad, weepy mess (for up to 48 hours!).
Instant ClearJel can also stabilize the sugar filling in our Cinnamon Streusel Swirl Bread, which begins to melt and liquefy while the dough is proofing. Because ClearJel absorbs available liquid, mixing it with other filling ingredients prevents it from leaking out the bottom during baking. In addition to saving a lot of messy cleaning, this also eliminates large air gaps inside the coil.
Food photography and styling by Liz Neily
Because of its fast-acting nature, Instant ClearJel is the MVP in our country Light fruit cobbler recipe. This large 9″ x 13″ cobbler bakes in the same time as square and round cobblers half its size, thanks in part to Instant ClearJel. Because the Instant ClearJel starts to gel as soon as it touches the juice from the fruit, the filling starts to thicken even before it goes into the oven. If you used regular cornstarch, gelatinization would not begin until the filling reached 203°F at the time of baking, requiring a longer bake.
Instant ClearJel can also help you earn an A+. This is the grade that Halli from Dallas, Texas gave us Baked Strawberry Cream Cheese Rolls Recipe: She used Instant ClearJel (for her first time!) to go ahead, making the rolls and refrigerating them overnight with the fruit filling inside. She proudly boasts that, thanks to ClearJel's gel properties, her filling didn't weep and her rolls were “absolutely perfect.”
It's easy to see why many bakers swear by Instant ClearJel. There is nothing else like it in terms of speed, ease of use and versatility. If it's not already there, hopefully Instant Clear Gel it will become a new staple in your pantry.
Cover picture (Apple pie) by Kristin Teig; food styling by Liz Neily.
