Bread making potential assessment of wheatoat composite flours

Abstract

In the recent years, evidence has been accumulated about the beneficial effects on consumers' health of oat in daily diets, respectively: maintaining blood cholesterol, lowering postprandial glucose, cardiovascular risk reduction, reducing oxidative stress and so on. The increase of oat content in bakery products, such as bread was generally associated with a decrease in volume and a worsening of sensorial characteristics, features that are guiding the consumer's decision to buy a particular product. Researchers have aimed to achieve a bakery product that contains a sufficient amount of whole oat flour, without affecting the quality characteristics of bread (volume, porosity, elasticity). Our results have shown that the ideal proportion between the oat flour and wheat flour was 30:70, in order to obtain a functional product attractive to the consumer. We have also analyzed the main rheological changes (by farinographic and alveographic methods) of dough obtained from wheat -oat composite flours (10, 20, 30, 40, 50% oat flour). Our findings have shown that the addition of oat flour significantly increased the water absorption and decreased water retention capacity under mechanical stress. Generally, the rheological parameters in wheat-oat composite flours were affected by a more than 20% oat flour content.