Effect of fat and sugar replacement on rheological, textural and nutritional characteristics of multigrain cookies.

Fat and sugar are responsible for the structure of
cookies but make them nutritionally inferior. Therefore, in
the present study, cookies with improved nutrition using
whole wheat flour (WWF) and incorporation of multigrain
mix (MM-oats, peas and fenugreek flours) at 0, 25, 50, 75
and 100% levels was studied. Further, fat was replaced
using pumpkin seed (PS) or watermelon seed (WS) at 25,
50 and 75% level and sugar was replaced using dry dates
(DD) or raisins (RS) separately at 20, 40 and 60%. MM
having protein at 15.13% and dietary fibre at 12.83% significantly decreased the water absorption (68.1–60.6%),
stability (2.52–1.35 min), amylograph peak viscosity
(665–821 BU), and cookie dough hardness (1737–690.5) at
100% MM. Based on the physico-sensory analysis, 75%
replacement of WWF with MM was selected for replacement of fat or sugar. Addition of PS or WS increased the
dough hardness (1235–4103 g), whereas the spread ratio of
cookies decreased from 6.25 and 6.31 to 5.54 and 4.06
respectively. Replacement of fat with PS at 50%, sugar by
DD at 40% along with a combination of sodium stearoyl
lactylate (SSL) and glycerol mono stearate (GMS) showed
improvement in the cookie texture. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) of cookie showed coating of starch
granules and appearance of sheet-like covering of protein
network. The mono and polyunsaturated fatty acid profile
of cookies improved apart from a two-fold increase in
protein and three-fold increase in dietary fibre.