Abstract:
In this covenant of functional foods, the world
seeks for new healthier food products with appropriate proportions
of bioactive constituents such as fiber, mineral elements,
phenols and flavonoids. The doum fruit has good nutritional
and pharmaceutical properties; therefore, its incorporation
in breads could be beneficial in improving human
health. In the current study, partial substitution of wheat flour
(WF) with doum fruit flour (DFF) at levels of 5 %, 10 %, 15%
and 20 % were carried out to investigate the dough viscoelastic
properties, baking performance, proximate compositions
and antioxidant properties of the breads. Partial substitution
of WF with DFF increased the water absorption and developing
time of dough (P ≤ 0.05), while, the dough extensibility,
resistance to extension and the deformation energy were reduced.
Bread supplemented with DFF resulted in a reduction
in quality in terms of specific loaf volume, conferred softness,
hardness, cohesiveness and gumminess to the bread crumbs.
DFF up to 15 % could partially replace WF in bread; increase
its nutritional value in terms of fiber content and minerals,
with only a small depreciation in the bread quality. Sensory
evaluation showed that breads supplemented up to 15 % DFF
were acceptable to the panelists and there was no significant
difference in terms of taste, texture and overall acceptability
compared to the control. The incorporation of DFF increased
the total phenolic contents, total flavonoids contents and antioxidant
properties compared to the control (for both flour and
bread).
