A dynamic micro-scale dough foaming and baking analysis – Comparison of dough inflation based on different leavening agents

Abstract

Leavening agents play a pivotal role in the production of baked goods. Through gas production the inner structure of the product gets its typical foam structure and textural appearance. Baking trials are thereby a common way to determine the achievable loaf volume, crumb structure and other product specific properties. The required material input for these classic baking trials is high, as well as specific baking skills are required to obtain comparable and reliable results. To minimize the previously mentioned challenges, an in-line kneading, proofing, and baking process in a conventional rheometer was used and a microscale method was developed to determine both flour-specific baking performance and leavening-dependent volume increase without sample transfer. The results show a direct comparability of standard baking tests and the microscale method with yeast. In a second step the influence of the commercial used acidifying agent in baking powder D-(+)-Glucono-1,5-lactone (GDL) was compared to l-galactono-1,4-lactone (GGL), an alternative that has the potential to be biotechnologically produced from pectin-rich plant biomass residues. The results showed that GGL produced carbon dioxide slower then GDL and could therefore be interesting for frozen or slow rising products especially for protein rich flours.