Bread Products from Blends of African Climate Resilient Crops: Baking Quality, Sensory Profile and Consumers’ Perception

Stefano Renzetti*, Heikki Aisala, Ruth T. Ngadze, Anita R. Linnemann, Martijn W. Noort

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

With food insecurity rising dramatically in Sub-Saharan Africa, promoting the use of sorghum, cowpea and cassava flours in staple food such as bread may reduce wheat imports and stimulate the local economy through new value chains. However, studies addressing the technological functionality of blends of these crops and the sensory properties of the obtained breads are scarce. In this study, cowpea varieties (i.e., Glenda and Bechuana), dry-heating of cowpea flour and cowpea to sorghum ratio were studied for their effects on the physical and sensory properties of breads made from flour blends. Increasing cowpea Glenda flour addition from 9 to 27% (in place of sorghum) significantly improved bread specific volume and crumb texture in terms of instrumental hardness and cohesiveness. These improvements were explained by higher water binding, starch gelatinization temperatures and starch granule integrity during pasting of cowpea compared to sorghum and cassava. Differences in physicochemical properties among cowpea flours did not significantly affect bread properties and texture sensory attributes. However, cowpea variety and dry-heating significantly affected flavour attributes (i.e., beany, yeasty and ryebread). Consumer tests indicated that composite breads could be significantly distinguished for most of the sensory attributes compared to commercial wholemeal wheat bread. Nevertheless, the majority of consumers scored the composite breads from neutral to positive with regard to liking. Using these composite doughs, chapati were produced in Uganda by street vendors and tin breads by local bakeries, demonstrating the practical relevance of the study and the potential impact for the local situation. Overall, this study shows that sorghum, cowpea and cassava flour blends can be used for commercial bread-type applications instead of wheat in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Original languageEnglish
Article number689
JournalFoods
Volume12
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2023
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This work was partially funded by the LEAP-Agri project NUTRIFOODS “Innovative approaches to value-addition and commercialisation of climate-smart crops for enhanced food security and nutrition in Africa and beyond”. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 727715. The project was funded in part by the Dutch Research Council NWO (W.09.03.110) under the LEAP Agri Joint Research Collaboration Program NUTRIFOODS project. The work and the contribution were supported by the SPEV project “Smart Solutions in Ubiquitous Computing Environments”, University of Hradec Kralove, Faculty of Informatics and Management, Czech Republic (under ID: UHK-FIM-SPEV-2022-2102).

Keywords

  • bread
  • cassava
  • cowpea
  • food security
  • sensory
  • sorghum

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