Rheological assessment of frozen gluten-free doughs

G. LORENZO; N. ZARITZKY; A. CALIFANO

Viña del Mar

Congreso; Tenth International Congress on Engineering and Food (ICEF); 2008

International Association of Engineering and Food

The incidence of celiac disease or other allergic intolerances to gluten is about 1% of the population. There is an increasing demand of gluten-free products in the last years, which lead to an important technological research for replacing the gluten matrix in the production of high quality gluten-free foods. Many of the products currently in the market are of low quality, exhibiting poor structure, mouthfeel, and flavor. ?Empanadas? are regional LatinAmerican meals, generally prepared with wheat flour. Large scale industries usually store these products in frozen conditions and bake them without a previous thawing process. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of composition (type of hydrocolloids and lipid phase) and frozen storage on the rheological and textural properties of gluten-free doughs used for ?empanadas? and pie-crusts production. Three optimized formulations were analyzed using different hydrocolloid mixtures (xanthan/guar gums; xanthan/HPMC) and lipid phases (sunflower oil, industrial margarine). Oscillatory measurements (Haake RS600) were performed to obtain the storage and loss moduli as a function of frequency. Textural analyses (TAXT2i, Texture Analyzer) consisted in puncture and elongation tests on the uncooked dough. Six samples of each formulation were storage at -20ºC for 15 days and then baked at 200ºC for 15 minutes without thawing. The Volodkevich bite jaws probe was used on the baked specimens to simulate the action of an incisor tooth. Microstructural evaluation was performed in an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM, Philips-ElectroScan 2010). Textural analyses showed that an improvement on extensibility and handling properties was achieved comparing to those gluten-free doughs currently available in the market. No significant differences (P