An insight into the bread bubble structure: An X-ray microtomography approach

Abstract

An insight into bread bubble structure is presented in this study. In particular, different types of bread have been investigated differing both in the yeast and water contents and therefore leading to distinct cellular structures. X-ray microtomography was used in combination with advanced statistical methods in order to find a correlation between the bread bubble size and its shape. Therefore in order to obtain in depth quantitative information the individual object geometrical parameters, OV, OS and SMI as stated above, were calculated using CTAn software (SkyScan) as these parameters provide the quantitative information for every single object (pore) present in the samples. The statistical results confirm that the small air cells incorporated in the dough and that are more or less cylindrical in nature, continue to grow and change shape (more plate like in nature) during baking. The results also highlight that this change in the shape with the increase of pore volume and surface is independent of the yeast or water content.