A combined use of different functional additives for improvement of wheat flour quality for bread making.

BACKGROUND: Low-protein wheat flour can produce bread with poor texture and appearance, reducing its nutritional value and market appeal. This is a growing concern for both the food industry and consumers relying on wheat as a dietary staple. The present study evaluated the individual and combined effects of bacterial xylanase (BX), maltogenic α-amylase (MG), vital gluten (VG) and ascorbic acid (AA) with respect to improving weak flour properties for bread making. RESULTS: BX, VG and AA improved gluten Index (GI), whereas MG was employed for optimizing amylolytic-activity in flour. VG increased the water absorption (WA) capacity of flour and prolonged dough development time (DDT). The dough stability (DST) was increased by BX and VG. BX and MG decreased crumb firmness (CF) and showed anti-staling effect. All additives reduced bake loss, increased loaf volume (LV) and retained or improved sensory attributes of bread. However, MG at 60 mg kg-1 (MG60), BX at 30 mg kg-1 (BX30), VG at 5% (VG5) and AA at 50 mg kg-1 (AA50) were found to be the most suitable for evaluating in combinations. Ternary combinations of MG60, BX30, VG5 or AA50 imparted significantly (P < 0.05) positive impacts on GI, WA, DDT, DST, CF, LV and sensory attributes compared to control, individual and binary combinations. CONCLUSION: The PCA suggested that a combination of MG60 + VG5 was more similar to MG60 + BX30 + VG5, whereas, MG60 + BX30 and MG60 + AA50 were more related to MG60 + BX30 + AA50 combination, but all of these combinations showed the improvement in the characteristics compared to control flour. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

Chapatti sensory and textural quality in relation to whole meal flour and dough characteristics.

Current study was designed to evaluate sensory and textural quality characteristics of chapatti, a commonly consumed flat bread in South-Asia in relation to flour quality parameters. Whole meals of cultivars and commercial wheat samples were analysed for physicochemical, pasting, dough and baking properties. Flours contained medium protein contents (12.4-13.7%) and possessed medium to high gluten strength (51-88). Pasting and dough properties were also suitable for chapatti making. Chapatti sensory attributes were strongly related to gluten content (r = -0.915) and strength (r = 0.851). Moderate relationships were also observed with protein (r = -0.665), falling number (r = -0.750), water absorption (r = -0.623) and maximum viscosity (r = -0.745) of whole meal flours. Tearing force for chapatti was largely related to gluten content (r = -0.893) and dough development time (r = 0.847) but also showed reasonable relationships with gluten index (r = 0.643), ash (r = 0.640), falling number (r = -0.681), maximum (r = -0.743) and breakdown (r = -0.650) viscosities. The information would be useful for household and commercial semi-mechanical chapatti-making process.

Moisture content and its impact on aflatoxin levels in ready-to-use red chillies.

Moisture content (MC) and aflatoxin contamination were analysed to determine Red Chilli quality. A wide range (9.1-19.8%) of MC with a mean value of 11.4 ± 2.4% was found. Of 116 chilli samples, about 37% had low MC (<10%), 29.4% had medium-low MC (10-12%), 18.9% had medium-high MC (12 < MC < 14%) and 14.7% were above 14%. These four chilli groups had average aflatoxin levels of 2.1 ± 1.1, 5.3 ± 4.2, 8.9 ± 5.9 and 37 ± 20 µg/Kg, respectively. A direct relationship between moisture and aflatoxin content was found. The data best fitted a polynomial trend (R² = 0.89). The obtained equation could be utilised to assess aflatoxin levels based on MC. This study highlights the importance of using properly dried chillies with low MC, that is, ≤10%, to minimise health hazards associated with aflatoxin contamination.

Effect of pentosans addition on pasting properties of flours of eight hard white spring wheat cultivars.

The effects of water extractable pentosans (WEP) and water unextractable pentosans (WUP) on pasting properties in flours of eight different hard white spring wheat (HWSW) cultivars was studied. WEP and WUP isolated from a hard wheat flour were added to each of the cultivars at 1% and 2% level. The results indicated that WEP exhibited a pronounced effect on pasting properties as compared to WUP and variety. Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to evaluate sources of variation. The variety significantly (P < 0.001) influenced all the pasting parameters. WUP caused significant (P < 0.001) variation in paste viscosities (except breakdown). WEP influenced more pronouncedly the hot paste, cold paste, breakdown and setback viscosities with F values-221.802, 214.286, 98.073 and 120.159, respectively. Variety-by-WEP interaction exhibited significant (P < 0.01) influence on pasting time, peak, hot paste and cold paste viscosities. Whereas, variety-by-WUP interaction only significantly (P < 0.001) influenced the pasting- time and -temperature. Duncan's test was used to analyze the significant difference (P < 0.05) within the variety. The results revealed that WUP did not induce significant (P < 0.05) influence on all the pasting parameters, whereas, WEP influenced significantly (P < 0.05) the paste viscosities of some of the varieties. It was also found that the addition of WEP remarkably reduced the setback, hot paste, cold paste viscosities and increased the breakdown viscosity in all cultivar flours. The effect of WEP was greater at higher level of supplementation on paste viscosities.