DisplayTitle

Effects of Rice Flour Blends on Bread Texture and Staling

¹National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, National Food Research Institute, Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8642, Japan. ²Corresponding author. Phone: +81-29-838-8031. Fax: +81-29-838-7996. E-mail: tomokos@affrc.go.jp

The effects of blending rice flour with wheat flour on bread texture and staling were investigated with three rice varieties with different amylose contents. For the texture analysis of bread crumb, the compression test, puncture test, and tensile test were performed. A flour blend containing rice flour suppressed the recovery of the crumb after compression. For the puncture test, blends with rice flour increased the distance to penetrate the crumb. The rupture strain measured with the puncture test decreased with staling of the bread crumb for all samples tested. The fresh bread crumb sample containing waxy rice flour had much greater extensibility in the tensile test than the other samples tested, but it was dramatically decreased after one day of storage. Endothermic enthalpies corresponding to retrograded amylopectin, which is part of the staling process, were also measured. The enthalpy of bread crumb from the blended flour was lower than that of wheat flour bread up to three days but was higher on day 4. A blend of rice flour thus reduced amylopectin retrogradation during early storage, but it was accelerated later. Bread blended with waxy rice flour showed the lowest enthalpy during storage.