Optimization of the recipe for composite flour-based sugar-free biscuits

Abstract

Biscuits are widely consumed bakery products around the globe. Its excess consumption has led to many health problems such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. Although sugar replacement may be a step in solving most health-related issues, the complication is in its formulation. It is tedious to replace sugar and prepare biscuits with quality attributes, including aeration, texture, and mouthfeel. The present study aimed to formulate composite flour-based sugar-free biscuits. A composite flour, millet-legumebased mixture, was used for biscuit preparation. The central composite design of response surface methodology (RSM) (Design Expert 11 version) was used to analyse the effect of eliminating sugar using polydextrose (A) (10-15%) and guar-gum (B) (0-1.5%) at different levels on physical (thickness and spread ratio) and textural (hardness and fracturability) attributes. The optimized biscuit was prepared, and the precision of the optimized biscuit was determined using a one-sample T-test in SPSS Statistics version 22. The optimization with the design expert resulted in the best solution, i.e., polydextrose (12.488%) and guar-gum (0.921%) with the highest desirability value of 0.993. The ANOVA, R2 , and R2 adjusted values for thickness, spread ratio, hardness and fracturability showed that the formulated sugar-free biscuits were statistically significant. Sugar elimination from the control biscuits noticeably affects its physical and textural attributes. Biscuits prepared were of lesser diameter, spread ratio, comparable hardness and fracturability than control biscuits, mainly due to the composite flour used in the formulation of experimental biscuits. The protein present in the flour restricts the spread of sugar-free biscuits because of its higher binding capacity. However, the addition of polydextrose and guar-gum resulted in the preparation of accepted quality sugar-free biscuits. To conclude, the proposed sugar-free biscuits may be a solution to the presen