Product Development and Quality Evaluation of Biscuit and Ready-to-Eat Snack from Cowpea-wheat Flour Blends.
The amount of seed coat of bole cowpea is 4% (w/w), this indicate the nature of the cowpea is more solids and less waste (hull) which has advantages in flour production yield. Hydration capacity and swelling capacity is also an important parameter in order to determine the cooking time and the energy required to process. Higher values of hydration capacity and swelling capacity shows that less cooking time, which is better cooking quality and less energy consumption.
Functional properties of the blended flour especially foam capacity and foam stability are dependent on the configuration of flexible protein molecules which have a good foaming capacity. But large conjugated globular protein molecules give low foam formation capacity. Foaming properties are also dependent on the amount of carbohydrate present in the flour besides of water-dispersible protein. This enables to form interfacial films on the upper surface and maintain air bubbles in suspension and slows down the rate of coalescence.
This study shows that 100% cowpea flour (B0) and 65% of wheat and 35% cowpea blend flour (B3) had higher foam stability and capacity. Besides this, cowpea flour had higher foaming properties. Because, it contains free water dispersible nitrogen and carbohydrates. It plied an important role in bakery products to enhance sensory qualities. The pure cowpea flour foam capacity was 21.05% and foam stability was 7.89% after 40-minutes stability time. This finding is also in agreement with reported by Peter. But, the concentration of the cowpea flour increased in
wheat flour foam capacity and foam capacity.
Adv Food Technol Nutr Sci Open J. 2019; 5(3): 92-106. doi: 10.17140/AFTNSOJ-5-161
