Creating value-added cereal-based baked products: marketplace offer, laboratory-designed goods, and revisited local products

In recent years, the growing interest in well-being and healthy lifestyle, the increasing awareness of the relationship between non-communicable diseases and unhealthy diet, as well as the increasing prevalence of food intolerances have boosted the production of an increasing number of novel goods in both gluten-containing and gluten-free products market. The overall objective of this thesis was to create cereal-based baked products with added value with respect to those currently available on the European market, satisfying the consumers’ needs in terms of both sensory acceptability and superior nutritional profile. The research project was divided into three different parts. In the first part of the work a market study was performed to get a realistic and detailed overview of the current bread-market supply in both gluten-containing and gluten-free products market, in order to obtain an overall quality picture of the available offer in this prioritised food industry area. The second part evaluated the impact of wheat flour replacement up to 45% (weight basis) by incorporation of nutrience-dense raw materials (ancient cereals, pseudocereals and legumes) in improving wheat bread quality. Specific objectives were: a) to explore the competences and exploit the suitability of non-breadmaking whole grains (such as teff, buckwheat and green pea flours) with unique nutritional components to be simultaneously included in mixed wheat matrices, to obtain novel and healthy fermented baked goods meeting the functional and sensory restrictions of viscoelastic breadmaking systems; b) to investigate the thermal transitions that occur during starch gelatinization and retrogradation in these multicomponent bread matrices baked at restricted water availability, c) to evaluate the impact of non-breadmaking whole grains in the transition phases, and d) to explore the relationships between thermal properties and starch digestibility and firming kinetics of these multigrain bread matrices. The third part evaluated the impact of different flours, starches, polymeric substances, and surfactants on gluten-free dough performance to achieve gluten-free flat breads. The specific objective was to explore the capability of different gluten-free basic formulations made of different flour (rice, amaranth and chickpea) and starch (corn and cassava) blends, to make processable and viscoelastic GF-doughs in absence/presence of single hydrocolloids (guar gam, locust bean and psyllium fibre), proteins (milk and egg white) and surfactant (vegetable oil) in order to select the most promising formulations for producing the so called Spianata, a typical and widely consumed Sardinian flat bread.