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Tortilla Bending Technique: An Objective Method for Corn Tortilla Texture Measurement

¹Research associate and professors, Cereal Quality Laboratory, Department of Soil & Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843-2474. ²Corresponding author. E-mail: esuhendr@taexgw.tamu.edu ³Senior project leader, Kellogg Co., Battle Creek, MI 49016. ⁴Associate professor, Agriculture Engineering Department, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2474.

An objective bending technique was developed to measure corn tortilla texture. During the test, tortilla strips were bent to a 40° angle. The bending technique detected differences in uniformity, thickness, and puffing. Thick tortillas required more force to bend and had greater moduli of deformation values than thin tortillas. The bending technique detected changes in tortilla texture during storage and textural differences among commercial corn tortillas purchased at supermarkets. Experimental error of the method was low for both commercial and laboratory-prepared tortillas. Parameters measured by the bending technique were significantly correlated with subjective rollability and flexibility test scores. The bending technique was sensitive to sample characteristics, fast, simple, repeatable, and provided information regarding the relationship between force (stress) and distance, which could be used to determine the linear region of viscoelastic materials.