Collaborative Study on Updated Method 10-52: Baking Quality of Cookie Flour--Micro Method (Sugar-Snap Cookie)

Abstract

In order to estimate the potential end-use quality of wheat and wheat flour, a plenitude of methods have been devised over the years. In fact, the American Association of Cereal Chemists was originally organized in 1915 partly to bring order, coherence, and standardization to all of the methods that existed at that time. Since that time, many new methods have been devised. Although these methods addressed the analytical needs of the time very well, it behooves the members of the scientific community to revisit existing methodology now and then to ensure that the methods that once functioned continue to do so. Many of the methods in the AACC International Approved Methods of Analysis analyze various individual physical and biochemical facets and components of cereal grains. Information on each component assists in understanding the nature and potential performance of a particular sample of grain. However, in order to measure the full impact of all the interactions among the array of endogenous components, baking or other end-use tests must be performed. One such test, which has existed since the 1950s, is AACC Intl. Method 10-52: Baking Quality of Cookie Flour—Micro Method. This method is more commonly referred to as the “micro sugar-snap cookie method.” The method, as it existed for many years, included flour and a base amount of water that also carried chemical leavening agents, plus a small additional amount (11–22%) of water for “protein compensation” (in practical ranges of flour protein content). Although the method dated from the early 1950s (3), it was only approved in 1985 (1,2) and re-approved in 1999. Originally used for cultivar development work, in which protein content varied greatly among undifferentiated, unselected wheat varieties, compensating for protein content seemed to provide better discrimination among early-generation breeding lines. The reason for varying the water based on protein content may have been due more to attempts to compensate for differences in, and the confounding problem of, protein quality versus quantity, but this was poorly understood in the early 1950s (4). As wheat breeders became more discriminating in their crosses and more adept at applying selection pressure for quality at earlier generations through biochemical and molecular biological techniques, assisted by cereal chemists in the quality-testing laboratories, the reasons for varying the water content based on protein content were minimized. Additionally, in the approval report for the original method, one criterion was to maintain a constant dough-handling consistency, at the time assumed to depend on the water-holding capacity of a particular flour. However, water-holding capacity is related to several factors, such as endogenous flour components like damaged starch, arabinoxylans, and glutenins, plus the effect of flour treatments, such as chlorination, and milling procedures. But total flour protein content itself had little to no effect on flour functionality, with respect to cookie-baking performance or product quality. Moreover, dough consistency isn’t related to cookie-baking performance or product quality. Consequently, the additional adjustment of the water level in the formula, based on total flour protein content, results in experimental variation that is not related to flour functionality. As a result, diagnostic evaluation of the baking quality of cookie flours is impaired if the original method is used. This method, especially when used on western U.S. wheat