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French Bread Loaf Volume Variations and Digital Image Analysis of Crumb Grain Changes Induced by the Minor Components of Wheat Flour

¹Moulins Soufflet, BP 12, 10402 Nogent sur Seine, France. ²INRA, BP 71627, 44316 Nantes Cedex 3, France. ³Corresponding author. E-mail: dellaval@nantes.inra.fr ⁴Limagrain group - ULICE, BP173 63200 Riom, France.

A standard quality flour for French breadmaking was fractionated by extraction of water-soluble components (6% db) and by defatting (<1%db) to study the impact of soluble components and lipids on bread quality in terms of loaf specific volume (v_s) and crumb structure. Addition of puroindolines (<0.2%) was also tested. Crumb cell structure was assessed by digital image analysis (DIA) according to erosion-dilation and closing treatments. The fraction of cells area with size <1 mm (%d<1) was defined as an index of fineness of crumb structure. Both DIA procedures allowed differentiation of crumb structures obtained by various formulations and, in the range of composition modifications tested, variations by a factor of 2 of both criteria (v_s and %d1) were obtained. Soluble fraction increased v_s and decreased fineness. Defatting and adding puroindolines increased fineness with no effect on v_s. The possible role of molecular components of each flour fraction was discussed in terms of rheological and foaming properties. DIA methods and flour recipes tested in this work offer a valuable tool for further studies on the processing-structure-properties relationships of French bread dough and crumb.