As previously mentioned, the MECASTARCH has the potential to provide methodologies for rationalizing the blending of flours for breadmaking on the basis of starch functionalities which differ between botanical origins. In the context of an unstable wheat market situation, due to climate changes and political issues, this knowledge can be valuable to society, as it can help to decrease the wheat flour quantity on the bread (and thus decrease its overall cost) with controlled quality loss.
The results obtained are essential elements in building our understanding of starch transformation and the baking process. It was expected that MECASTARCH's contribution would be towards the academic world, and this is confirmed by the contribution to the knowledge in the cereal scientific community and the development of novel methodologies, such as: the continuous monitoring of loaf volume and local gas fraction during cooling using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI); the mechanical testing of moderately hydrated starches upon heating (explored for the first time); the NLOM applied to bread dough for the first time too, with the potential of distinguishing granular and extragranular phases without any labeling, and exploring the gas cell wall in 3D; the morphological analysis of starch granules in gas cell walls, implying 3D acquisition with confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and 3D analysis with the AVIZO ® software. For each methodology, limitations have also been identified and will be shared with the scientific community, constituting tracks for future investigation and improvements of the methods.
As far as the results have been analyzed today (end of the contract), mechanical testing performed under moderate hydration levels encountered in dough showed that starch granules, even in the waxy form, do not soften enough to be deformed with the gluten. They also soften late (>75-80°C). In complement, microscopic observations of crumb with CLSM showed distortion of some starch granules, suggesting some deformability. This could be explained by the higher levels of hydration possible in the dough environment (flour constituents other than starch can hold water which can be mobilized for starch gelatinization upon heating). This finding was also consistent with the uneven access to water of individual starch granules in dough well recognized among the cereal scientific community. Consistently with the results from mechanical testing, little difference in granule size distribution was found at different extension levels of the gas cell walls from the crumb.
