Food structuring in cereal-based products by means of hydrogen bonding

Structure formation during processing of cereal-based food like bakery products is largely controlled by biopolymers melting transitions (i.e. starch gelatinization, protein denaturation) and subsequent formation of biopolymeric networks. Solutes such as sugars, polyols and soluble fibres present in the water phase can strongly influence these processes. In this lecture we demonstrate how the volumetric density of hydrogen bonds can quantitatively describe the melting transition of starch and proteins in water solutions containing different solutes, i.e. sugars, polyols, soluble fibres and mixtures thereof. Taking as example a cake application, we then show how we can construct the structure formation pathway of a cake in the supplemented state diagram. The predictions of the formation of a mixed protein network and of starch gelatinization are presented and validated with experimental data from protein and starch analysis at different times in the baking process. Overall, this paper shows how key structuring transitions during preparation of bakery products can be largely predicted from physical parameters descriptive of hydrogen bond interactions.