Physico-Functional and Sensory Properties of Flour and Bread Made from Composite Wheat-Cassava

Background and Objective: Raw material for bread and pastry products, one of the world’s most consumed foods, may become scarce and more expensive in coming decades, because of climate change and urbanization and a steadily growing population. Consumption of bread and other baked aerated wheat flour products has spread in developing countries such as Benin. The objective of the present study was to further characterize the effects of partial replacement of wheat flour by cassava flour on dough and bread properties. Materials and Methods: Wheat flour was replaced with 5-30% cassava flour prepared from solar and oven dried slices of cassava flesh variety (BEN 86 052) and the physical properties of the flour, dough and bread were studied. Results: Physicochemical analysis showed that substitution of wheat flour with 5-30% cassava flour yielded acceptable doughs and bread with a fine and uniform granulometry, close to that of wheat flour (<160 μm). A fiber content, ash content and moisture content were less than 1, 0.7 and 10%, respectively. Also, results demonstrated that no significant difference (p>0.05) was observed in lightness (L* around 88) of wheat flour in comparison to composite flour until 30% of partial replacement. The statistical analysis of the data showed there were no significant differences (p>0.05) for the quality attribute evaluated the 10% cassava flour substituted bread with 100% wheat flour bread. Conclusion: This research shows that cassava flour could be used in composite bread production at 20% level of substitution and beyond this level bread characteristics may be affected. Replacement of wheat flour by cassava flour at 10% in bread making is economically important in Benin as it could save $ 9 586 549 per year. Moreover, this would reduce the expenditure of foreign exchange, post-harvest losses, unemployment and poverty also reduce the celiac disease risk. Therefore, this could increase cassava production and increased income for farmers and local industries.