Texture study of gluten-free cookies added with fibre by instrumental, image and sensory analysis

MAITE GAGNETEN; FACUNDO PIENIAZEK; DIEGO ARCHAINA; VALERIA MESSINA; DANIELA SALVATORI; CAROLINA SCHEBOR

Journal of Food Measurement and Characterization

Springer

Año: 2023

2193-4126

The alternative starches and flours used in gluten-free bakery in replacement of wheathave very low quantities of fibre. As a consequence, the resulting products have a poornutritional profile in terms of this nutrient, and present technological difficulties andquality challenges related to texture. In this work, the texture of gluten-free cookies addedwith a source of fibre, and its impact in consumer´s perception was studied. Due to thecomplexity of texture, its description was assessed through three different methods:instrumental force/deformation measurements, image analysis, and sensory evaluation, inorder to reach a better representation of the product’s texture and to compare the differenttechniques’ capacity to describe it. The instrumental method showed that the controlcookie presented a higher maximum force (Fmax), indicating that this sample wassignificantly more resistant to fracture, while the cookie added with fibre showed a lowerdeformation before fracture (ΔFmax), which corresponds to a more fragile structure. Theresults obtained by image texture analysis using the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrixmethod were consistent with those determined by instrumental analysis. Goodcorrelations were reached between the instrumental firmness and the five imageparameters, showing the capacity of image attributes to predict mechanical properties ofthe samples. Sensory analysis with consumers showed a good acceptability of the product,but was not as useful to detect small differences between cookies. The study of texturethrough different techniques could be an interesting approach to attain complementaryinformation, providing a more comprehensive perspective of this multifaceted attribute.