Properties and bread‐baking performance of wheat flour composited with germinated pulse flours

Abstract

AbstractBackground and objectivesGermination of pulse seeds can effectively improve the functional and nutritional properties of resultant flours for broader food applications to deliver multiple health benefits. However, there is a lack of understanding on the performance of germinated pulse flours in bakery goods, particularly in bread. This study aimed to determine the flour quality, dough properties, and baking performance of composite flours prepared by blending raw or germinated pulse flours and hard wheat flour at 10:90 and 20:80 ratios (w/w).FindingsThe incorporation of both raw and germinated yellow pea and faba bean flours reduced the starch level but increased the protein level of the flours. The inclusion of the pulse flours progressively decreased the pasting viscosities of the composite flours—with more noticeable changes being observed with the germinated samples, corresponding well with the decreases in their falling numbers. The incorporation of the raw and germinated pulse flours diminished the solvent retention capacity with 5% lactic acid and gluten performance index, and thus, the generated doughs showed shortened dough development time, poorer dough stability, and less elastic structure than the control. The breads baked from the wheat–pulse flour blends—despite the addition of 2% wheat gluten—exhibited decreased loaf volumes and smaller numbers of cells per slice but greater crumb firmness, and the use of 20% germinated pulse flours showed the most significant impact.ConclusionsThe inclusion of germinated yellow pea and faba bean flours into hard wheat flour weakened the dough structure and caused poorer bread‐baking performance.Significance and noveltyThe findings from this research greatly advanced our understanding of the roles that germinated pulse flours played in the flour and dough systems after being composited with hard wheat flour as well as their influence on the quality attributes of the baked bread products.