STARCH-WATER RELATIONSHIPS IN THE SUGAR-SNAP COOKIE DOUGH SYSTEM

Prime starch was extracted from soft and hard wheat flours and ball-mi lled to produce 100% damaged starch. Small amounts of the ball-milled starch or a pregelatinized starch were added to sugar-snap cookie form ulations. Other cookie doughs were produced from prime starch only (no flour) with small amounts of the ball-milled starch added. Starch dam ages of the resulting substituted soft and hard wheat flours and soft and hard wheat prime starches were determined and compared to diameter s of sugar-snap cookies produced from the control and treatments. Soft wheat flour and starches produced larger diameter cookies than their hard wheat counterpart at all levels of damaged starch. Both sources o f damaged starch (ball-milled or pregelatinized starch) had similar ef fects on cookie diameter. Cookies produced from all starch (no flour) were similar to their respective flour controls at approximate to 8% d amaged starch. To produce the same size cookie as that produced by sof t wheat flour and starch, hard wheat flour and starch cookie formulati ons required less damaged starch and had lower alkaline water retentio n than did the soft wheat flour and starch cookie formulations. Other flours were treated with chlorine gas to pH 4.8. Pregelatinized starch (approximate to 5%) was required to reduce the cookie diameter as muc h as chlorine treatment did. Results suggest unique quality difference s between soft and hard wheat starch as they function in sugar-snap co okie baking. The functional results of those differences are not adequ ately quantified by the estimation of damaged starch level.