Lucuma Powder from Peru - What It Tastes Like and How to Use It
Caramel and vanilla from a fruit? When you stir a spoonful of lucuma powder into a light yogurt cream, you can taste these very fine notes.
The South American fruit brings a mild sweetness. It comes out particularly well in recipes with few ingredients. A good start is homemade lucuma ice cream. For that you need three ingredients and a blender.
What is lucuma powder?
Lucuma is the fruit of the South American lucuma tree (Pouteria lucuma). Under the green peel lies yellow to orange-colored, starchy pulp. For lucuma powder, the pulp is dried and finely ground. This way it can also be used here by the spoonful, e.g. as a warm breakfast or frozen dessert. [1, 2]
What benefits does lucuma powder have?
Extra fiber. With 5 g of our lucuma powder, you add 2 g of fiber to your yogurt, for example. With 10 g, it is 4 g.
For comparison: The German Nutrition Society states a guideline value of at least 30 g of fiber per day for adults. With oats, pear and lucuma, you combine several fiber sources in one bowl for breakfast. [1, 4]
More binding in cold creams. The finely ground pulp gives a thin yogurt cream more consistency. Stir in the powder teaspoon by teaspoon until the cream is easy to scoop. This also works directly in cold soy yogurt and is practical for desserts without cooking. [1]
Fruit sweetness with its own aroma. Lucuma naturally brings a fine caramel and vanilla note. For a banana shake, therefore, banana, plant-based drink and lucuma are enough. How sweet you like it, you decide when tasting. [1]
A plant-based ingredient for raw food cuisine. Our organic powder consists entirely of gently dried lucuma pulp. For raw date-almond balls, you can put it directly into the blender. It brings flavor to the mass and can be dosed dry. [1]
How does lucuma taste and can it replace sugar?
Lucuma tastes mildly sweet, slightly fruity and reminds of caramel with a touch of vanilla. Even a small amount gives a simple cream more aroma. Do you like it nutty? Then combine lucuma with white almond paste. A pinch of salt brings the caramel note particularly well out.
As an alternative to sweetening, the fruit powder is suitable especially where you can dose it to taste. Lucuma naturally contains sugar and sweetens weaker than household sugar. When baking, there is therefore no general conversion ratio.
Would you like to try the aroma in banana bread or muffins? Then mix two teaspoons of lucuma into the dry ingredients on the first try and keep the other quantities of your recipe. This way you notice when tasting how strong you perceive the fruit note and can take more or less next time. [1]
Three ideas for your menu
Pear porridge with lucuma and walnut. Cook your oats with oat drink and half a diced pear. Finally, stir in a teaspoon of lucuma. Add a few roasted walnuts on top and leave the cinnamon in the spice rack the first time. This way you taste the lucuma fruit better.
Cacao-lucuma cream. Mix one teaspoon of lucuma powder and half a teaspoon of cacao with a splash of plant-based drink into a smooth paste. Fold it into 150 g of unsweetened soy yogurt. A few cacao nibs give the soft cream some bite.
Lucuma ice cream from three ingredients. For one portion, cut a ripe banana into thin slices and freeze it. Let the slices thaw briefly and mix them with two teaspoons of lucuma and one tablespoon of oat drink. Add only as much liquid as your blender needs. As soon as the mass is creamy, fill it into a chilled bowl and serve immediately.
What ingredients does lucuma have? A look into the studies
Fiber in the powder. How many fibers a portion provides can best be read on the respective package. For our organic lucuma fruit powder, 40 g of fiber per 100 g is stated. Calculated to 5 g of powder, that is 2 g of fiber. The same amount contains around 1 g of naturally occurring sugar. [1]
Plant substances in the fruit. A study published in Food Chemistry investigated the pulp of three lucuma types. The researchers analyzed among others sugar, phenolic compounds and carotenoids. In addition, they tested the antioxidant activity in the laboratory.
Such a test describes how a sample behaves under defined conditions. Whether a portion of lucuma powder protects human cells from oxidative stress was not investigated. [3]
Where does the golden-yellow color come from? A second study fits particularly well with this. Gómez-Maqueo and her team found 33 different carotenoid compounds in the pulp of two lucuma varieties.
Carotenoids are natural plant pigments. In a digestion simulated in the laboratory, they only released to a small part from the fruit tissue, but remained mostly stable. How many carotenoids are in the fruit and how much the body can absorb of them are therefore two different questions. [2]
Does lucuma powder have a low glycemic index?
The frequently cited study of the three lucuma types provides no measured glycemic index for lucuma powder. The research team worked in the laboratory. For a GI value, one would have to measure how the blood sugar of people changes after consuming a defined amount of available carbohydrates. [3]
Which lucuma powder fits into your menu?
If you want to get to know the taste of the fruit pure, then look at the ingredient list of our organic lucuma fruit powder. It consists of a single ingredient and is therefore 100% pure.
The fruits grow on the slopes of the Peruvian Andes, their pulp is gently dried and finely ground in raw food quality. For your first portion, we recommend the banana ice cream above in the recipe. In it, the fine caramel note comes out particularly well. [1]
Try organic lucuma fruit powder from PureRaw
Sources for further reading
- PureRaw. Ingredients, origin, nutritional values and use of the organic lucuma fruit powder.
- Gómez-Maqueo et al. (2020). Investigation of the carotenoids of two lucuma varieties and their release during simulated digestion. Food Chemistry, 316, 126369. Original study
- Original investigation on primary and secondary plant compounds as well as in vitro properties of three lucuma types. Food Chemistry. Original study
