Chapter 14 - Rice flour breads

Abstract

Rice is usually consumed as cooked rice. However, the rice milling produces a large number of broken kernels, which for a long time have been considered as by-products of the process. Rice flour has been obtained as a way of generating added-value ingredients. Efforts have been made to replace wheat flour with rice flour to reduce wheat flour imports into nonproducing countries. In addition, with the growing interest in gluten-free bakery products, and in particular gluten-free breads, rice flour has been playing an important role as a healthy commodity. Numerous researches have been carried out over the past decade to understand the quality characteristics of rice flour for bread production as well as to improve the nutritional quality by adapting recipes or physically modifying rice flour. This chapter presents a critical discussion on the studies carried out on rice flour to improve its baking behavior and the quality characteristics of the resulting breads.