Effect of barley flour and freeze-thaw cycles on textural nutritional and functional properties of cookies

Studies were carried out on cookies prepared by incorporating barley flour (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) into wheat flour. The cookies were evaluated for their physical, chemical, nutritional, textural and sensory characteristics. All the cookie samples showed high fiber, mineral and protein contents when compared to those from 100% wheat flour. Incorporation of barley flour improved the color of the cookies from pale cream to golden brown. The cookies became crispier as indicated by the reduction in the breaking strength value from 4.94 to 3.29 kg. Considering the color, taste, flavor, surface appearance of the cookies, 30% incorporation of barley flour was found to be optimum giving cookies containing 1.7% β-glucan, 36.6 ppm iron, 31.8 ppm calcium, 22.9 ppm zinc while the texture characteristics showed that 30% barley incorporated cookies had breaking strength of 4.021 kg lower than wheat cookies and also indicating that the product was nutritionally rich as compared to the 100% wheat flour cookies. The incorporation of barley flour increased the antioxidant properties and polyphenolic content and hence increased functional properties of the cookies compared to the control. The prepared product was safe microbiologically as well as chemically upto 6 months of storage in different packaging materials under varying temperature conditions. The cookie dough contained 30% barley flour and 100% wheat flour (control) was allowed to under go frozen storage and freeze-thaw cycles (freeze for 12 h and thaw for 4 h). After each freeze-thaw cycle, cookie dough was evaluated for its texture profile and also dough was baked to prepare cookie and assessed for its physical, textural and sensory characteristics. It was found that cookies prepared after freeze-thawing of dough were crisper than the normal ones.