SEM/EDX Microanalysis of Chlorinated Cake Flour Particles: Initial Study

Abstract

Gaseous chlorine treatment has long been used commercially to improve the baking performance of cake flours. For reasons not well understood, cakes from treated flour usually have finer texture, and don't “fall” when removed from the oven. Recently, the safety of chlorine as a food additive has been questioned, and this commercial treatment may soon be banned. Search for alternative treatments has spurred research on how the added chlorine acts and, in particular, where this chlorine is located within the flour. Answers to the latter question have come previously only from bulk chemical analyses of heterogeneous flour fractions. Cake flour particles - including large endosperm chunks (fig. 1a), large (fig. 2a) and small starch grains and small fragments of lipoproteinaceous matrix material (fig. 3) “typically range in size from less than 1 to about 100μm; particles less than 3μm diameter represent only a very small fraction of total flour mass, however. For instrumental reasons, the present, initial study excluded these smallest particles.