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Physical and Sensory Properties of Regular and Reduced-Fat Pound Cakes with Added Amaranth Flour

¹Departamento de Nutrição, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo, 715, CEP 01246-904, São Paulo, Brazil. ²Departamento de Tecnologia de Alimentos, Faculdade de Engenharia de Alimentos, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Caixa Postal 6121, CEP 13083-862, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. ³Corresponding author. Phone: +55-19-3521-4001. Fax: +55-4-19-3289-3617. E-mail: yokic@fea.unicamp.br

The sum of wheat flour and corn starch was replaced by 10, 20, or 30% whole amaranth flour in both conventional (C) and reduced fat (RF) pound cakes, and the effects on physical and sensory properties of the cakes were investigated. RF presented 33% fat reduction. The increasing amaranth levels darkened crust and crumb of cakes, which decreased color acceptability. Fresh amaranth-containing cakes had similar texture characteristics to the controls, evaluated both instrumentally and sensorially. Sensory evaluation revealed that replacement by 30% amaranth flour decreased C cakes overall acceptability scores, due to its lower specific volume and darker color. Amaranth flour levels had no significant effect on overall acceptability of RF cakes. Hence, the sum of wheat flour and corn starch could be successfully replaced by up to 20% amaranth flour in C and up to 30% in RF pound cakes without negatively affecting sensory quality in fresh cakes. Moisture losses for all the cakes were similar, ≈1% per day during storage. After six days of storage, both C and RF amaranth-containing cakes had higher hardness and chewiness values than control cakes. Further experiments involving sensory evaluation during storage are necessary to determine the exact limit of amaranth flour replacement.