Cereal Chem. 71:601-605   |  VIEW ARTICLE


Association of Sugar-Snap Cookie Quality with High Molecular Weight Glutenin Alleles in Soft White Spring Wheats.

E. Souza, M. Kruk, and D. W. Sunderman. Copyright 1994 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

High molecular weight glutenins (HMW-Glu) affect the quality of leaven breads produced from wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) flour. However, effects of these proteins on pastry quality are poorly understood. Sugar-snap cookie quality was compared to HMW-Glu alleles of soft white spring wheat breeding lines and cultivars from a four-year trial at Aberdeen, ID. Sugar-snap cookie quality was affected less by the composition of the flour protein than by the quantity of flour protein. Individual alleles did not have significant effects on cookie diameter, except for the 13+19 allele of the Glu-1B locus, which was associated with smaller cookie diameters. The glutenin strength of alleles at the three HMW-Glu loci was estimated using a glutenin rank sum (GRS) derived from previously published research. The glutenin strength (GRS score) of cultivars and breeding lines was negatively correlated to cookie diameter (b = 0.02 cm unit(-1); P less than 0.05). The negative correlation between GRS score and cookie diameter was greatest in the year with the lowest average flour protein content and least in the year with the highest average protein content. The effect of allelic variation was probably masked in the years with high average protein content due to the overriding effects of total protein content. Selection for cultivars with low GRS scores may produce cultivars with better and more predictable sugar-snap cookie quality.