Effect of dry heat and heat moisture treatments on physicochemical and functional properties of finger millet flour and effect of their substitution on characteristics of prepared bread

Finger millet is the sixth essential cereal crop and a rich source of macronutrients and micronutrients. In the present study finger millet flour was modified using Dry-Heat Treatment (DHT) and Heat-Moisture Treatment (HMT) at two different temperatures (110 °C and 130 °C) for 3 h and their effect on physicochemical properties was evaluated. The HMT-treated flour at both temperatures exhibited higher water and oil absorption capacities, solubilities, freeze-thaw stabilities, lower swelling power and pasting properties. However, DHT-130 °C flour exhibited a higher water absorption capacity, swelling power, color, and paste clarity than native flour but a lower pasting profile, but higher than HMT flours. HMT-130 °C and DHT-130 °C flours displayed lower hardness than native flour, while HMT-110 °C and DHT-110 °C flours showed higher hardness than native flour. As HMT-130 °C and DHT-130 °C flours showed better functional properties, composite breads were prepared from these flours along with native finger millet flour by substituting wheat flour by 10, 20 and 30% by weight. The specific loaf volume, hardness, and sensory parameters of breads made from DHT-130 °C were higher than the other breads. The overall acceptability of bread made from composite flour (DHT-130 °C) with 10% substitution was found to be similar to bread made from 100% wheat flour. Thus, bread made from DHT-130 °C flour was highly acceptable.