JFS

E: Food Engineering and Physical Properties

Effects of Chemical and Enzymatic Modification

on Dough Rheology and Biscuit Characteristics
L ENE PEDERSEN, KARL KAACK, MERETE N. BERGSE, AND JENS ADLER-NISSEN

ABSTRA
CT
cial pr
otease on dough rrheological
heological
ABSTRACT
CT:: The effect of addition of sodium meta-bisulfite and a commer
commercial
protease
properties and biscuit characteristics was studied on 7 biscuit wheat cultivars. Sodium meta-bisulfite (SMS)
(360 mg/kg flour) or protease (300 mg/kg flour) was added to semisweet biscuit dough. Rheological studies
included creep recovery and shear oscillation. SMS and protease increased maximum strain, recovery strain, and
phase tan
, and lo
w er
ed stor
age modulus
elativ
e rreco
eco
ver
y, % rreco
eco
ver
y. The effects vvar
ar
ied among
tan
low
ered
storage
modulus,, G
G, and the rrelativ
elative
ecov
ery
ecov
ery
aried
cultivars and between SMS and protease. Biscuit eccentricity (width/length) was significantly reduced by addition of SMS or protease, but the effect varied among the cultivars, and between SMS and protease. Partial least
squares regression analysis of the rheological parameters and the dimensional characteristics showed that
biscuit contraction and spread were mostly correlated to % recovery of the dough, and protein and gluten content
of the flour
orr
elations betw
een pr
edicted and measur
ed contr
action and spr
ead w
e r = 0.70 and r = 0.43,
flour.. C
Corr
orrelations
between
predicted
measured
contraction
spread
wer
ere
er
respectiv
ely
espectively
ely..
Keywor
ds: biscuit, dough, rrheology
heology
otease
eywords:
heology,, pr
protease
otease,, meta-bisulfite

E: Food Engineering & Physical Properties

Introduction

n semisweet biscuit dough, the main components are wheat flour,

fat, sugar, and water. The low content of fat and sugar, and the relatively high water content allow a gluten network to be developed
during mixing (Oliver and others 1995; Flint and others 1970). In the
biscuit processing, the dough is sheeted and laminated in several
steps, and the gluten network is stretched and aligned in the direction of sheeting (Levine and Drew 1994). After sheeting, the dough
is allowed to relax for a short period of time before cutting. The elasticity and stresses applied during processing will make the dough
shrink, which may result in biscuits with oval dimensions.
To improve the rheological properties of the dough and to diminish biscuit contraction, gluten-modifying agents are frequently
used. Sodium meta-bisulfite (SMS) is a commonly used chemical
reductant that cleaves intermolecular and intramolecular disulfide
bonds in the gluten proteins. This cleavage results in reduced molecular weight for the proteins, and the extensibility of the dough
is increased (Stauffer 1994). Studies by Wade (1970) showed that
up to a level of about 450 ppm SMS (based on flour), the biscuit
length was increased. Oliver and others (1995) showed that addition
of SMS decreased dough contraction for all cultivars studied. Even
though it has been stated that less than 0.14% of added SMS was
detectable in the biscuits (Thewlis and Wade 1974), legislation and
consumers demand that the baking industry minimize or substitute the usage of chemical additives.
Proteases are used in the baking industry to improve doughhandling properties and the quality of the baked products. In biscuit dough with pH of 6 to 8, bacterial proteases will be the most
effective, as their optimum pH is in the neutral range. Proteases
hydrolyze the peptide bonds in the gluten proteins, then decrease
the molecular weight of the proteins. The chain length reduction

MS 20040426 Submitted 6/25/04, Revised 9/4/04, Accepted 11/27/04. Authors Pedersen and Kaack are with Danish Inst. of Agricultural Sciences,
Dept. of Food Science, Kirstinebjergvej 10, DK-5792 Aarslev. Authors
Bergse and Adler-Nissen are Biocentrum-DTU, Technical Univ. of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby. Direct inquiries to author Pedersen (E-mail:
Lene.Pedersen@agrsci.dk).

E152 JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCEVol. 70, Nr. 2, 2005

Published on Web 2/14/2005

affects dough extensibility and dough viscosity (Stauffer 1994).

SMS acts faster than proteases, but proteases continue their activity
until they are denatured. When optimizing the amount of protease
needed, one must consider wheat flour quality, temperature, and
time period where the protease is active (Stauffer 1994). Gaines
and Finney (1989) found that the spread of cookies was affected by
the type of protease used and the wheat flour quality.
Traditionally, empirical large deformation methods like farinograph and extensigraph are used for testing of dough rheological
properties in relation to bread-making quality. Additionally they
are used to characterize dough from biscuit wheat (Oliver and others 1995). These methods, however, only provide empirical information. Fundamental methods at low deformations (for example,
oscillation and creep recovery) give exact correlations of stress and
strain without disrupting the structure. Oscillation measurements
are widely used to study the viscoelastic properties of wheat flour
dough, the influence of protein composition, and the relationships
to baking potential (Khatkar and Schofield 2002;Uthayakumaran
and others 2000; Safari-Ardi and Phan-Thien 1998; Janssen and
others 1996b; Faubion and Hoseney 1990; Dreese and others 1988;
Hibberd 1970). Generally, the dynamic moduli G and G are
strongly affected by the composition and processing of dough, although in some cases these measurements are not able to distinguish between doughs of different strength. Addition of proteases and reductants to dough significantly decreased G (Sai
Monahar and Haridas Rao 1997; Oliver and others 1995; Lindahl
and Eliasson 1992; Gaines and Finney 1989).
Creep recovery is a transient way of measuring the extensibility
and elastic recovery, and it has been used to study wheat flour
dough behavior and bread-making quality (Wang and Sun 2002;
Edwards and others 1999; Hibberd and Parker 1970). Edwards and
others (1999) used creep recovery to distinguish between dough
from weak and strong durum wheat cultivars.
The aim of the present work was to investigate the effect of a
commercial protease and SMS on the rheological characteristics of
biscuit dough and on the dimensional properties of the biscuits
from different wheat cultivars. Additionally, the relationships be 2005 Institute of Food Technologists
Further reproduction without permission is prohibited

Enzymes in biscuit dough . . .

Materials and Methods

Wheat cultivars
The wheat material in this study included 6 cultivars: Banker,
Encore, Claire, Galatea, Reaper, and Ritmo, and 1 breeding
line: NSL 959183. All cultivars and lines except Ritmo and Reaper
are soft endosperm wheat cultivars. The cultivars were selected to
obtain a wide diversity in biscuit-making properties. Galatea has no
high-molecular weight (HMW) glutenins and produces dough with
almost no gluten structure. Ritmo is classified as bread wheat, but
it is frequently used as biscuit wheat.
Samples were harvested in 1998 and 1999 in the northern part
of Jutland in Denmark. Claire and NSL 959183 were only harvested in 1999. All samples were grown in triplicate using mineral fertilizer and pesticides in accordance with normal practice. Samples
from replicates were mixed and stored dry for 2 mo before milling.
Milling was done on a Brabender Quadromat Senior. Before being
milled, the samples were conditioned to 15.0% moisture for 2 h.

Flour quality tests

The physicochemical testing of flour was carried out in accordance with established procedures, which are used to characterize
wheat quality. Protein content of grain and flour was determined by
near infrared reflectance, which was calibrated to Kjeldahl. The
gluten content was determined according to ICC standard nr 137
using a Glutomatic 2100 (Perten Instruments). The gliadins fraction
was obtained from the gluten by 2 successive extractions with 70%
(v/v) ethanol (12.5 mL/g flour). The extraction time was overnight
and 3 h, respectively (Janssen and others 1996a). All flour tests were
done in duplicate.

Dough procedure for rheological testing

A standard dough recipe was used, consisting of 200 g flour, 40 g
granulated sugar, 20 g hardened vegetable fat, melted at 50 C, and
tap water at 20 C. The amount of water added was adjusted to
water absorption capacity (WA) measured on the Farinograph, with
80 mL water corresponding to 55% WA. This was done to equalise
the consistency of the doughs from cultivars with different WA. The
amount of water varied from 71 mL to 80 mL.
The modifying agents used were SMS and a bacterial protease
(TS-E-555, Danisco Cultor), EC 3.4.21. For each flour sample,
dough without added SMS and protease and dough with added
SMS or protease were produced. The dosage levels used in the experiments were determined from commercial applications and recommendations. Samples from 1998 were tested with 180 and 360
mg/kg of SMS (S1 and S2) and 150 and 300 mg/kg protease (E1 and
E2). Samples from 1999 were tested with only 360 mg SMS kg 1
flour (S2), and 300 mg protease kg1 flour (E2). Doughs were mixed
in a 300-g Farinograph mixing bowl for 6 min at a speed of 126 rpm.
The dough rested in a container at ambient temperature for 10 min
before testing, and dough temperature was 23 to 24.5 C. This procedure and choice of aging time were investigated in a previous
work (Pedersen and others 2004).

Table 1Semisweet biscuit dough recipe

Ingredient
Flour
Total sugarsa
Fatb
Salt
Na2CO 3
(NH 4)2CO3
Sodium metabisulfitec
Proteasec (Danisco Cultor)
Water d

Quantity
1000 g
224 g
136 g
10 g
7g
13 g
180 or 360 ppm
150 or 300 ppm
325 g

a Include a mixture sucrose, glucose, and lactose (dry products).

b Hardened vegetable fat.
c Added as a 10% solution.
d Adjusted to the water absorption.

4.5 mL was removed with a cylinder and placed on the lower plate.
The upper plate was lowered until the gap was 2.0 mm. To prevent
the dough from drying during testing, the dough edges were sealed
with a polymer resin (Plastybycol), which has no effect on the
rheological testing. The sample rested 3 min before measurements
were conducted, and all experiments were done at 30 C.
A strain sweep at a frequency of 1 Hz was done to determine the
linear viscoelastic region. This was determined to be up to 0.15%,
and a target strain of 0.1% ( 10 Pa) was used in all the experiments.
Frequency sweep was performed in the range from 0.5 Hz to 30 Hz.
Results were expressed in terms of the storage modulus G, loss
modulus G, and tan (G/G). From the frequency sweeps, a linear
fit was made for log(G) versus log(frequency) to obtain the slope,
which reflects the time dependence of G. Moreover, tan at 1 Hz was
used to characterize the ratio between viscous and elastic properties.
Creep recovery measurement was performed with creep- and
recovery-time of 300 s and a stress of 10 Pa. Initial experiments
showed that the biscuit dough reached a steady viscous flow in this
time range, which makes it possible to measure and compare the
elastic recovery. Creep recovery parameters included maximum
strain, recovery strain, and % recovery, which is recovery relative to
maximum strain. Creep recovery and oscillatory measurements
were done consecutively on the same dough sample. This testing
procedure was done in duplicate.

Biscuit-making procedure
Semisweet biscuits were produced according to a commercial
formulation and baking practice (Pedersen and others 2004). The
basic recipe is given in Table 1. The doughs were mixed for 7 min
and after resting for 10 min, the dough was sheeted and laminated in 8 layers. Biscuits were cut using a circular mold (56 mm dia)
and baked immediately. From each flour sample, 3 dough batches
were produced with no addition, SMS (360 mg/kg of flour), or protease (300 mg/kg), respectively.
The testing of the biscuits included length (L) and width (W) of
10 biscuits taken randomly from the batch. The eccentricity was
calculated as the ratio between width and length (W/L). The contraction of the dough in the direction of sheeting and the spread
perpendicular to the direction of sheeting were calculated as

Rheological testing
A controlled stress rheometer (Bohlin, CVO) was used in the oscillatory and creep recovery tests. The rheometer was equipped
with a 40-mm parallel plate measuring geometry. Both plates were
serrated to prevent the dough from slipping. A dough sample of
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Dm is the diameter of the mold used (56 mm).

Statistical analysis
A general linear model procedure in the Statistical Analyses SysVol. 70, Nr. 2, 2005JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE

E153

E: Food Engineering & Physical Properties

tween fundamental rheological characteristics of the dough and

biscuit dimensional properties are evaluated to determine those
rheological parameters, which are related to the biscuit properties.

Enzymes in biscuit dough . . .

tem (SAS, version 8.0, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, N.C.) was used for
the statistical analyses of the influence of addition on the wheat cultivars.
To study variation in rheological and baking quality characteristics, principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares
regression (PLSR) (Unscrambler, version 7.5, CAMO, Trondheim,
Norway) were applied. In PCA, the original correlated response variables are transformed and reduced to a set of uncorrelated variables,
the principal components (PC), which are linear combinations of the
original variables. The PLSR is used to study the relationship between
rheological parameters (x-variables) and baking characteristics (yvariables). The 1st few PLSfactors are estimated to give the best prediction of y-variables from x-variables. PCA and PSLR have previously been used to study the relationships between chemical flour
composition, physical dough properties, baking process, and the
characteristics of bread and biscuits (Pedersen and others 2004;
Frgestad and others 2000; Magnus and others 2000).

Results and Discussion

Table 2Flour quality characteristics of cultivars from 1998

and 1999
Protein
(% of DM*)
Cultivar
Banker
Encore
Galatea
Claire
NSL 959183
Ritmo
Reaper

E: Food Engineering & Physical Properties

Rheological properties of doughs

modified by SMS or protease
Maximum strain and recovery strain increased when SMS or protease was added. When dosage was increased from E1 to E2, and S1
to S2, maximum strain and recovery strain increased significantly
(P > 0.001), and it was decided to use the high dosage of SMS or
protease (S2 and E2) in the rheological testing and in the baking
experiments. Examples of creep recovery behavior are shown in
Figure 1.
During a creep time of 300 s, a viscous flow occurred, which
agreed with Edwards and others (1999). The relatively short creep
and recovery time was used to study rheological behavior in the
same time range as in the biscuit baking test. Later works (Edwards
and others 2001) showed that recovery time of 10000 s was necessary to obtain equilibrium recovery. Frequency sweeps (Figure 2)
showed that G increased when frequency was increased. However,
tan also showed a positive dependency of the frequency. This
means that at higher frequencies the dough acts more like a liquid. This positive frequency dependency agreed with Baltsavias
and others (1997), who studied the influence of fat in the dough.
Furthermore the slope of the frequency dependence seemed to
vary when protease or SMS was added to the dough. Therefore the
slope of log(G) versus log(frequency) was calculated to characterize
the time dependence of G.
The main results of creep recovery and oscillation from 1998 and
1999 are in Table 3. There was a significant (P < 0.001) difference
between the 2 y for all the rheological characteristics with exception
of G and % recovery. This difference is probably explained by a
higher protein content of wheat from 1999 compared with 1998.
Addition of protease or SMS had a significant effect (P < 0.001) on all
the rheological characteristics, with exception of % recovery in 1998.
Maximum strain and recovery strain highly increased, when the gluE154

JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCEVol. 70, Nr. 2, 2005

Gliadin (% of
gluten DM*)

1998

1999

1998

1999

1999

9.0
8.9
8.8

9.8
10.0
10.0
9.7
10.2
10.3
11.1

18.0
17.9

24.2

36
38
64
64
52
31
52

b
b

8.9
8.9

22.8
24.5
25.8
28.2

19.4
19.0

a Analysis could not be performed due to a very soft dough.

b Cultivars not harvested in this year.

*DM = dry matter

Table 3Rheological properties of biscuit dough with addition of SMS or protease, means of all cultivars 1998 and
1999a
Addition
No
of protease
addition (300 mg kg1)

Physical flour characteristics

There was a significant difference regarding protein and gluten
content of the flour between 1998 and 1999: 8.9% protein in 1998
and 10.2% protein in 1999 (Table 2). This was mainly explained by
a higher N-fertilizer application in 1999. Hard endosperm cultivars
(Ritmo and Reaper) showed higher protein and gluten content than
soft endosperm cultivars. The gliadins content varied considerably
among the cultivars (31% to 64% of the gluten protein), and this
variability was expected to influence the effect of the gluten-modifying agents.

Gluten
(% of flour)

Addition
of SMS
(360 mg kg1)

Maximum
strain (%)

1998
1999

1.23a
1.19a

2.00b
3.16b

2.46b
4.36c

Recovery
strain (%)

1998
1999

0.45a
0.48a

0.69b
1.12b

0.91b
1.47b

Percent
recovery

1998
1999

36.80a
41.07a

35.66a
35.82b

33.88a
33.21b

G (kPa)

1998
1999

17.20a
16.79a

13.36b
10.04b

10.68c
8.48b

G (kPa)

1998
1999

7.28a
7.79a

6.03b
5.07b

5.02c
4.54b

tan

1998
1999

0.42a
0.46a

0.45b
0.50b

0.46b
0.52b

log G/
1998
log frequency 1999

0.19a
0.22a

0.21b
0.26b

0.22c
0.28c

a Means within a row followed by different letters are significantly different

(P 0.05).

Figure 1Creep and recovery strain for the cultivars Ritmo

(a) and Banker (b) without addition (0), sulfite (S2), and protease (E2).
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Enzymes in biscuit dough . . .

ten proteins were modified by SMS or protease. The dough was getting more extensible and more recoverable, due to reduction of disulfide bonds by SMS, or hydrolysis of peptide bonds by protease.
The relative recovery (% recovery) of the dough after addition of
SMS or protease decreased, which means that elasticity decreased
when SMS or protease was added. In oscillation measurements
protease or SMS lowered G and G, whereas tan increased. The
lowering of G and G could be explained by the reduction in molecular weight of the gluten proteins, resulting in a weaker gluten
network. This agrees with results from Rao and others (2000), which
showed that higher values of G for strong wheat dough compared
with medium dough. Increased values of tan also reflected a more
viscous dough after addition. Additionally, the slope of log(G) versus log(frequency) increased, when protease or SMS was added.
Thus, the effects of protease or SMS on the gluten proteins are highly reflected in long-time behavior (creep recovery), as well as in
short-time behavior (oscillation).
There was a significant interaction between the cultivars and
addition of protease and SMS (P < 0.001). These differences among
the cultivars are illustrated in Figure 3, which shows creep recovery
results from 1999. For most of the cultivars, Banker, Galatea, Ritmo,
Claire, and NSL 959183, the addition of SMS increased maximum
strain more than protease, whereas a difference in % recovery between SMS and protease was observed only for Galatea, Claire, and
NSL 959183. For the cultivar Claire, addition of protease had nearly
no effect, whereas SMS greatly increased maximum strain and reduced % recovery. However, for Encore and Reaper, there was no difference between SMS and protease on both maximum strain and %
recovery. The largest effect of addition was observed for the hard
endosperm cultivars, Reaper and Ritmo, and the line NSL 959183.
Cultivars with a high ratio of glutenins are supposed to be more affected by protease or SMS than cultivars with a lower ratio (Stauffer
1994). This agreed well with the low content of gliadins measured for
Ritmo, however for Reaper and NSL 959183, the large effect could not
be explained by low content of gliadins. For Reaper, the large effect
may be due to a higher protein content. The cultivar Claire, having
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a high content of gliadins, showed a large effect with SMS but nearly
no effect with protease. The effect on Galatea was relatively low as
expected, because this cultivar has no HMW glutenins. However,
there still was an effect on low-molecular weight (LMW ) glutenins
and gliadins in this cultivar. Thus, the variability in shear extensibility and recovery measured with addition of SMS or protease are not
fully explained by the gliadin to glutenin ratios. A more detailed
analysis of the protein composition is needed to explain the difference in rheological properties when protease or SMS are added to the
dough. Studies on cookie dough viscosity (Stauffer 1994; Gaines
1990) showed that cultivars varied in their response to addition of L-

Figure 3Maximum strain (a) and % recovery (b) of cultivars and lines from 1999 (mean 6 SD). 0 = no addition;
E2 = protease, 300 ppm; S2 = SMS, 360 ppm.
Vol. 70, Nr. 2, 2005JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE

E155

E: Food Engineering & Physical Properties

Figure 2Frequency
sweep curves from
the cultivars Ritmo (a)
and Banker (b) without
addition (0), protease
(E2), and SMS (S2).

Enzymes in biscuit dough . . .

cystein, a chemical reductant, and proteases, and the variability was
also explained by the protein and gluten structure.
Oscillation results with addition of protease or SMS were also significantly affected by the cultivars (P < 0.001). In Figure 4, the slope
of log(G) versus log(frequency) is presented. The slope of log(G)
versus log(frequency) increased when the dough was modified by
protease or SMS. This means that the time dependency is changed
when the proteins are modified, and SMS has the highest effect. The
effect of SMS was significantly higher than for protease for all cultivars, with exception of Ritmo. As in creep recovery, the slope of Claire
was only slightly affected by protease. With SMS, the slopes were
nearly equal for all cultivars. This indicates that the occurrence of
disulfide bonds in the proteins have an impact on the differences in
slopes observed between the cultivars without modification.

tion of a gluten-modifying agent, a small contraction and spread

takes place.
In relation to commercial baking, these results demonstrate the
need for optimizing the dose of modifying agents with respect to wheat
flour quality (the cultivar) to obtain biscuits with consistent quality.

Relationships between rheological

characteristics and biscuit dimensions
To summarize the systematic variation in rheological data and
dimensional characteristics of the baked biscuit, PCA was applied

Dimensional properties of the biscuits

E: Food Engineering & Physical Properties

The main effect of addition was less contraction in the direction

of sheeting, which resulted in lower values of % length, whereas the
effect on spread, % width, was more scattered (Figure 5). The contraction, % length, was strongly affected by addition of protease or
SMS, cultivar, and year (P 0.001). For spread, % width, and height,
the significance was weaker (P 0.05). Thus, the modification of
proteins by protease or SMS mainly affected the contraction in the
direction of sheeting. The difference in protein content between
1998 and 1999 resulted in lower % decrease in length and higher %
increase in spread from low-protein samples (low-protein samples
from 1998).
The eccentricity (W/L) reflects the degree of deformation from
circular shape of the baked biscuits, and both contraction and
spread have an impact on this parameter. As width exceeds length
for all biscuits, the eccentricity was greater than 1. Cultivar, addition, and different years significantly influenced the values of eccentricity (P 0.001). Additionally, a strong interaction between
cultivar and addition was observed for all the dimensional variables
(Figure 5). Also, there was a high variability within a cultivar due to
variations in dimensions of biscuits from different positions of the
dough sheet. For the cultivars Reaper, Ritmo, Banker, and Galatea,
addition of SMS or protease reduced % length. Maximum reduction
was observed for Ritmo, whereas Galatea was slightly reduced in
length. This agreed well with low, and respectively high, gliadin
content in Ritmo and Galatea. However, for Galatea there was still
a reduction, which indicates that LMW glutenins and gliadins also
affected the contraction. Encore was only affected by protease,
whereas Claire showed no response on protease with respect to %
length, which corresponds well to the low effects on the rheological
characteristics measured on the dough. NSL 959183 was only slightly affected by both SMS and protease, however this cultivar had a
high effect measured on dough.
Additionally, the spread varied among cultivars and between
SMS and protease. Addition seemed to decrease the spread for
Galatea and Ritmo; for the rest of the cultivars, there was no effect
or a tendency to increase in spread. In the work of Gaines and
Finney (1989) and Gaines (1990), the spread of cookies from
dough modified by L-cysteine and protease was increased for all
cultivars. In semisweet biscuit dough with a stronger gluten network than cookie dough, the variability in protein composition
seemed to have more influence on the spread of the biscuits. Variability in % length and % width both contribute to the eccentricity calculated. For cultivars with high % decrease in length (Reaper,
Ritmo, and Claire), this dimension mostly influenced the eccentricity, whereas both dimensions influenced the eccentricity of
Galatea. The lowest value of eccentricity obtained was 1.03 for
Galatea with protease or SMS added. Therefore, even with addiE156

JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCEVol. 70, Nr. 2, 2005

Figure 4Slope of log (G9) versus log (frequency) of dough

from 1999 (mean 6 SD). 0 = no addition; E2 = protease,
300 ppm; S2 = SMS, 360 ppm.

Figure 5Dimensional changes of biscuits, 1999. (a)

Length, (b) width, and (c) eccentricity, n = 10, means and
SD.
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Enzymes in biscuit dough . . .

revealed that 21% of the variation in y-variables could be explained.
When protein and gluten content were included in the x-variables,
the explained variation increased to 42% with 2 PCs. The PLSR
model showed the best correlation between observed and predicted values for % length (r = 0.70), whereas % width showed a weaker correlation (r = 0.43). The PLSR model could not predict the
height of the biscuits. Analysis of the regression coefficients showed
that % recovery and protein and gluten content were the variables
that mainly estimated % length and % width, and consequently, the
eccentricity of the biscuit. Thus, the recovery of the dough after a
small deformation seemed to be correlated to the recovery after
large deformations applied by the sheeting of the dough. This indicates that creep recovery measurements may be used to predict
the tendency of the dough to contract, also when gluten-modifying
agents are used.

Conclusions

ddition of protease and SMS in commercial application doses

strongly affected the rheological characteristics of the dough
from the 6 cultivars. Addition of SMS (360 mg/kg of flour) or protease (300 mg/kg of flour) makes the dough more extensible and
recoverable measured by creep recovery, and less elastic measured
by oscillation. The changes in rheological parameters were related
to protein content, indicating that relatively more bonds were attacked in samples with high protein content. The effects measured
varied among the cultivars and between SMS and protease, and
the variability may be related to the gliadin-to-glutenin ratio and
the protein composition.
Addition of SMS or protease mainly reduced the contraction of
the biscuits in the direction of sheeting, whereas the effect on the
spread was more scattered. Also on the dimensional characteristics
differences among cultivars were observed. Reduction of biscuit
eccentricity, when protease or SMS were added, was most pronounced for Ritmo, which has a high content of HMW glutenins
compared with the rest. However, the eccentricity of the cultivar
Galatea with no HMW glutenins was also affected by addition of
SMS or protease, indicating that LMW glutenins and gliadins also
contribute to the contraction of the biscuit. Regarding the cultivar
Claire, addition of protease had minor effects on both dough rheological properties and biscuit dimensions. There is no explanation
to the restriction of protease activity in this single cultivar.
A PLSR including rheological data, protein, and gluten content of
flour and dimensional characteristics showed that 42% of the variation in contraction (% length), spread (% width), and eccentricity
could be explained by rheological data and protein and gluten content. The correlation between predicted and measured values of %
length and % width was 0.70 and 0.43, respectively. The protein
and gluten content together with the relative recovery (% recovery)
were the variables that mainly contributed to the estimation of %
length. Results indicate that recovery measured at small deformation to some extent is correlated to the recovery of the biscuit
dough after sheeting and laminating.

Acknowledgments

Figure 6Bi-plot of scores and loadings from PCA of rheological characteristics, protein, and gluten content, and
dimensional characteristics. e, PCA-scores; j, PCA-loadings. (a) Separation of samples from 1998 and 1999 and
(b) separation of samples with no addition from samples
with SMS and protease.
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The present work was funded by the 1st Framework Programme of

the Cereal Network (the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and
Fisheries). The authors wish to thank Pajbjergfonden and Sejet
Plantbreeding for providing the wheat material used in the study. We
also acknowledge Danisco Cultor for providing the protease used.

References
Amemiya JI, Menjivar JA. 1992. Comparison of small and large deformation
measurements to characterize the rheology of wheat flour doughs. J Food Eng
16:91108.

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E: Food Engineering & Physical Properties

to the values measured for both creep recovery and oscillation and
baking tests. Additionally, protein and gluten content were included. Scores and loadings plots are in Figure 6. PC1 explained 42% of
the variation, which mainly is associated with variation in the rheological characteristics. In the PC 2, which accounts for 31% of the
variation, protein, and gluten content, and baking characteristics
are separated. Maximum strain, recovery strain, and tan are correlated, and these 3 variables are inversely correlated to G and G, as
they are located in opposite directions of the PC1. This redundancy
was expected because creep measurements can be approximated
to oscillation at small frequencies. The baking characteristics, %
length, height, and eccentricity are correlated to each other and to
% recovery as the only single rheological characteristics. The spread
(% width) is inversely correlated to protein and gluten content of
the flour. The bi-plot in Figure 6A shows that samples from 1998 are
situated in the lower right quadrant and correlated to high values
of % width and low protein and gluten content. Furthermore, samples with no addition are placed at the right in the plot, correlated
to high values of G and G and high eccentricity (Figure 6B). There
was no distinct separation of the cultivars.
A PLSR was applied to study the relationship between the rheological parameters, gluten and protein, and the baking characteristics. A regression based on a model with all rheological data (xvariables) and baking characteristics (y-variables) from both years

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