Rheological properties of deep fried tortillas prepared with hydrocolloids*

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine two important rheological properties, fracturability and toughness, of deep fried tortilla chips which are prepared with the addition of hydrocolloids using texture analyzer with Kramer‐shear cell. Low, medium and high viscosity carboxymethyl cellulose, and Xanthan gum were used as hydro‐colloids. For each material, different concentrations were added into the formula for tortilla during dough formation to determine the effect of different concentrations on the rheological properties. Tortilla chips were deep fried in pure vegetable oil for several frying times to investigate the effect of frying time. It was found that with increasing concentration of hydrocolloids, force required to break the tortilla chips increased, thus toughness, and fracturability values increased. However, longer frying times resulted in more fragile tortilla chips with reduced fracturability.