The influence of baking time and temperature on characteristics of gluten free cookies enriched with blueberry pomace

Abstract

Blueberry pomace, by-product of juice production, was processed into a new food ingredient by drying and grinding and used for a new gluten-free cookies' formulation, with the aim of improving nutritional profile and antioxidant capacity. Since duration and temperature at which dough is thermally treated during baking highly influence the quality of a baked product, the objective of this work was to optimise the baking conditions in order to obtain the best technological quality of the cookies. Referring to the results obtained at 160 and 170 °C and different baking times, the following was found: the difference in baking conditions caused variation between cookies' diameters of less than 1%, more regular shape of the cookies was obtained when baking time was shorter, hardness of cookies is highly correlated with moisture content, water activity, baking loss and short/long diameter ratio values. The colour characteristics (L*, a* and b*) of cookies' top and bottom surfaces indicated that the cookies were not overbaked under the chosen baking conditions. Baking time of 14 min at 170°C was found to be the optimal baking conditions for the blueberry pomace enriched gluten-free cookies.

Keywords

• gluten-free cookies
• blueberry pomace
• baking time
• baking temperature