Staling in Starch Breads: The Effect of Antistaling α-Amylase

A novel starch bread that contained no gluten was found to firm at a rate comparable to a normal standard bread made from wheat flour. Treatment of both the starch and the standard bread with Novamyl, an antistaling enzyme mix, inhibited firming. ¹³C CP/MAS NMR studies showed that the decreased firming of the Novamyl-treated starch bread was correlated with decreased starch retrogradation. For the Novamyl-treated bread the increase in retrograded starch over six days following baking was about 11% compared to an increase of over 200% for the untreated bread. These results suggests that starch retrogradation is sufficient to cause bread firming.