Rheological characterisation of cake batters generated by planetary mixing: Comparison between untreated and heat-treated wheat flours

The rheological behaviour of high ratio cake batters prepared with untreated and heat-treated wheat flours was analysed at different stages of the manufacturing process, namely slurry, (on aeration) foams and (with fat addition) aerated emulsions, featuring air volume fractions up to 0.50. Both steady shear and viscoelastic behaviours were studied. All materials exhibited shear-thinning behaviour at 20 °C over the shear rate range studied (0.07-10 s⁻¹). The generalised Cox-Merz rule could be applied to all samples. Materials prepared with heat-treated flours exhibited greater stability, as indicated by slurry thixotropy and cohesive energy, and the change in apparent viscosity and air content of foams and aerated emulsions on extended mixing. Foams and aerated emulsions showed significant elastic behaviour with G′∼G″. The temperature dependency of aerated emulsions was studied by oscillatory shear testing from 20 to 100 °C and indicated three regimes in temperature dependence: below 40 °C G′and G″ were insensitive to temperature; between 40 and 70 °C the complex viscosity exhibited Arrhenius-type behaviour, while above 70 °C G′ and G″ increased as expected for gelatinisation and foam setting. The weak gel model for foods was used to analyse the latter data sets and confirmed that the gel network generated in aerated emulsions prepared with heat-treated flours was significantly stronger than those made with unheated flours. The differences between flour types were also observed in tests on un- and heat-treated flours obtained from a second and third harvest. The impact of these quantifiable differences in rheology on performance during baking is discussed.