Bread making of durum wheat with chickpea sourdough or compressed baker's yeast

Two ways of improving durum wheat bread-making quality were evaluated. First, durum wheat (cultivar "Papadakis") was blended with bread wheat flour of good (A-flour) or medium (B-flour) quality (70% durum and 30% bread wheat flour). Durum wheat flour displayed the γ-gliadin 45 electrophoretic band and acceptable bread-making quality. Breads from flour blends had better volume, particularly the durum and A-flour blend. The addition of ascorbic and citric acid and malt flour improved dough rheological properties and thus bread volume, as well as staling rate and sensory characteristics. These were more pronounced in the blend of durum with B-flour. Second, durum wheat flour alone was used to prepare chickpea sourdough-leavened bread, as flavor is important for consumer acceptance. With the addition only of salt, the chickpea sourdough-leavened durum wheat bread displayed acceptable loaf volume, distinguished flavor and longer shelf life compared with bread prepared with compressed baker's yeast. One of the practical applications of this study is the possibility of using a common durum wheat cultivar instead of local varieties as is the case with traditional breads. Results of this work may be useful for promoting greater acceptance of durum wheat breads as well as expansion of the use of a traditional Mediterranean chickpea sourdough-leavened durum wheat bread with distinguished flavor and taste. This work may serve as a guide for determining the quality of flours suitable for production of "home made" or "village" bread (which has high market value as specialty bread) by blending durum and bread wheat flours. Best results are obtained with good-quality bread wheat flour, regardless of the good quality of durum wheat cultivar used, together with the use of the dough improvers implemented in this work.