Monitoring cake baking by studying different ingredient interactions: From a model system to a real system. (October 2015) - Hesso, N.
Abstract: Cake batter is a complex matrix essentially composed of lipids, egg, sugar and flour. The baking process plays an important role in the structural, textural and physical properties of cakes, as in all bakery products. Knowledge of the interactions between the ingredients and the induced phenomena, such as starch gelatinization and complexation, protein denaturation and competition for water at the different stages of batter baking, can be used as the key quality control of the end-product "cake". The aim of this work was to investigate in depth the interactions between the different constituents of the batter by differential scanning analysis and heating cell X-ray diffraction on model and real batter systems. The results show that 'three ingredients' model systems can explain the different phenomena occurring during the baking of cake batter (real system). In the presence of sugar and fat, in a limited water system, starch gelatinization takes place in two steps, the largest part being combined with protein denaturation at high temperature. Graphical abstract: Highlights: Model system approach was used to understand batter-crumb transition during baking by Micro DSC. Model system approach was done by mixing batter ingredients in binary, ternary and more complex systems. The ternary model systems explained the phase transitions at high temperature. Real batter study revealed that starch gelatinization occurred in two steps (gelatinization and melting) during baking.