Study of the impact of wheat flour type, flour particle size and protein content in a cake-like dough: Proton mobility and rheological properties assessment

Abstract : The study of food products is always a challenge due to the number of components involved and the interactions that may occur between them. Water is a particular ingredient which interacts with all hydrophilic compounds, although affinities may differ for limiting water amount. During this study, results obtained using H-1 NMR on cake dough were compared in terms of the effects of flour type (soft or medium hard), the addition of gluten (5%-20%) and the use of soft flour fractions (flour particle fractions smaller or larger than 50 mu m). T-2 values and the signal intensities of different proton populations were studied as a function of the wheat protein contents of dough samples. Physicochemical characterization methods were used to better understand how the origin and particle size of flour might impact the hydration properties and mobility of a model system. Increasing the protein content in dough samples was related to an increase of the mobility of fat protons and of the least mobile proton population (relaxation times ranging from 175 to 180 ms and from 5 to 7 ms, respectively).