Impact of commercial soft wheat flour streams on dough rheology and quality attributes of cookies Original Research Article

Commercial patent (P1), middle-cut (P2) and clear (CLR) mill stream fractions, exhibiting a wide range of compositional and physico-chemical characteristics, were incorporated alone or in combination into three cookie recipes (wire-cut, rotary and laminated processes) at various flour:sugar:fat:water ratios. Cookies prepared with the clear fraction had higher dough consistency and were notably denser and harder with smaller surface area than those made with the patent and middle-cut fractions. Varying the ratios of the P1, P2 and CLR flour fractions produced cookies that exhibited superior or inferior dough consistencies and end-product quality attributes than commercial soft wheat flour. The influence of the flour fractions and their interactions (main, square and interaction effect) on the dough rheology and cookie characteristics was studied by the partial least square (PLS) regression analysis. Dough consistency, cookie’s density and hardness were all positively correlated to the CLR and CLR2 variables, and to a lower extent to P1 * P2 and P2 * CLR for the three recipes. The P alveograph, granulometry and protein content parameters allowed the prediction of the dough consistency (R2 ⩾ 0.75). Moreover, the viscoelastic properties of the flour/water doughs could complement the physico-chemical parameters in predicting the consistency of the laminated biscuit recipe (R2 ⩾ 0.82).