Skip to main content
ARS Home » Midwest Area » Wooster, Ohio » Corn, Soybean and Wheat Quality Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #294790
Title: Significance of starch properties and quantity on sponge cake volume

Author
item CHOI, HYUN-WOOK - Washington State University
item Baik, Byung-Kee

Submitted to: Cereal Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/3/2014
Publication Date: 5/15/2014
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/59895
Citation: Choi, H., Baik, B.-K. 2014. Significance of starch properties and quantity on sponge cake volume. Cereal Chemistry. 91(3):280-285.

Interpretive Summary: Sponge cake baking quality potential is considered as one of the most responsive and reliable indicators of overall food processing and product quality of soft wheat, whereas our understanding on physicochemical characteristics of soft wheat desirable for making sponge cake is still far from adequate. Especially, the role, and quantitative and qualitative implications of starch, dominant component of soft wheat flour, to sponge cake baking are little known. We have verified that both starch content of wheat flour and starch properties including amylase content and pasting properties significantly influence sponge cake baking quality. The findings will help us to complete the quality profiles of soft wheat for baking sponge cake and provide the guidance toward improvement of soft wheat quality. The obtained information also identifies the appropriate potential uses of partial-waxy (reduced amylase content) and high amylase content traits in development of soft wheat varieties.

Technical Abstract: We evaluated the qualitative and quantitative effects of wheat starch on sponge cake (SC) baking quality. Twenty wheat flours, including soft white and club wheat of normal, partial waxy and waxy endosperm, and hard wheat, were tested for amylose content, pasting properties, and SC baking quality. Starches isolated from wheat flours of normal, single-null partial waxy, double-null partial waxy and waxy endosperm were also tested for pasting properties and baked to SC. Double-null partial waxy and waxy wheat flours produced SC of 828 to 895 mL in volume, while volume of SC baked from normal and single-null partial waxy wheat flours ranged from 1093 to 1335 mL. The amylose content of soft white and club wheat flour was positively related to the volume of sponge cake (r=0.790, P<0.001). Pasting temperature, peak viscosity, final viscosity, breakdown and setback also showed significant relationships with SC volume. Normal and waxy starch blends having amylose content of 25, 20, 15 and 10% produced SCs of 1570, 1435, 1385 and 1185 mL in volume, respectively. More than 80 g starch or more than 75% starch in 100 g starch-gluten blends in replacement of 100 g wheat flour in the SC baking formula were needed to produce SC having the maximum volume potential. Starch properties including amylose content and pasting properties as well as proportion of starch evidently play significant roles in SC baking quality of wheat flour.