ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) can be applied as an analytical “fingerprinting” method to characterize the thermal properties of wheat starch in cookies, crackers, and pretzels. It suggests that these thermal properties can be related to both starch structure and function in such low-moisture baked goods. DSC has proved to be a valuable analytical tool for a broad range of baked products. The diagnostic DSC assay has proven useful because it provides a profile of the state of crystallinity of the fat and sucrose, the temperatures of melting of the fat and of melting/dissolution of the sucrose, and the resulting effect on the vaporizability of the water. Commercial low-moisture baked goods, such as cookies, and hard pretzels, derive their characteristic textural crispness from the glassy solid state of their crumb structures. In regard to processing, cracker and pretzel matrices can vary considerably, depending on the extent of starch gelatinization occurring in the preparation and baking of doughs.
