Gluten-free bread quality enhancement by sugar beet fibre application

The food industry faces major challenges in gluten-free (GF) bread production especially in terms of bread quality and nutritional adequacy. GF breads available on the market usually have numerous quality defects including reduced volume, poorly developed cell structure, a dry, crumbly texture and poor sensory characteristics. To address aforementioned technological problems dietary fibres (DF) can be applied in GF formulations considering their hydration and gel forming ability, textural and thickening effects. Taking into account proved DF positive health outcomes it will be possible to obtain a new functional product with an improved nutritive and technological profile that will satisfy the needs of consumers in the health and hedonistic sense.
In this regard presented study aims to show how a fibrous by-product from sugar beet processing (sugar beet fibre (SBF) obtained from sugar beet pulp) can potentially be used to improve the GF bread nutritional quality while not compromising on the bread properties (volume, texture, colour) and sensory acceptability. Experiments were performed according to Box-Behnken experimental design, with independent variables: quantity of SBF (3, 5, and 7% on maize flour basis), quantity of hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) (2, 3 and 4% on maize flour basis) and quantity of water (210, 220 and 230% on maize flour basis).
SBF application slightly increased GF bread loaf volume in formulations with medium and high HPMC content while simultaneously decreased crumb hardness. Crumb brightness (parameter L*) was not affected by SBF addition. GF breads formulated with 4% HPMC and 3, 5, 7% SBF received the highest scores upon sensory evaluation (36.8–40.0 points) and had excellent quality. The aforementioned GF breads had fine taste, soft crumb texture with medium size air pores of good uniformity, yellow colour, fresh appearance and high loaf volumes.