The cookies were prepared by replacing wheat flour with Pearl millet flour
Celiac is a major disease in the developed countries consuming gluten food. Hence, to add nutrition to the diet and to surpass the gluten intolerance, a diet with gluten-free or low gluten food is advisory.
In order to combat the present problem, an investigation was undertaken by a team of researchers, at the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (BAMU), Aurangabad, to develop low gluten cookies from composite flour consisting of pearl millet (bajra) and wheat flour with better nutritional and sensory characteristics.
The cookies were prepared by replacing wheat flour with Pearl millet flour (PMF) by 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100% respectively. The prepared cookies were then evaluated for various physicochemical, nutritional, textural and sensory parameters.
The study revealed that, as the per cent addition of PMF increases, the cookies resulted in a significant decrease in weight, diameter and spread factors. However, the hardness, breaking strength and cutting strength increased with the increase in the addition of PMF in the cookies.
The nutritional analysis showed that an increase in moisture, fat, fibre, calcium, phosphorus and iron was recorded in all the samples of the cookies prepared. Moreover, the cookies prepared from PMF (60%) exhibited the highest score for overall acceptability.
The researchers concluded that the cookies prepared by replacement of whole wheat flour with PMF (60%) found significantly superior with respect to overall quality characteristics over the rest of the combinations.