Utilization of Popcorn for Gluten Free Cake and Cookies Manufacturing

Nowadays, the main task of food producers is to make new tasty gluten-free products with an elevated nutritive value to enrich the menu of celiac patients. One of such products could be sweets, such as cake and cookies. Therefore, unpuffing popcorn flour (raw popcorn flour RPF), puffing popcorn corn flour (PPF) and a mixture (1:1) from them, in addition to corn flour as a control sample, were used to prepare gluten-free cake and cookies formulas. The lowest amylose content (19.81 %) of corn flour followed by raw popcorn flour (22.97%) and popped popcorn (24.95 %). Gluten free cake prepared from popped popcorn (PPF) recorded the highest volume (395 cm), weight (201.51 g), height (6.63 cm) and specific volume (2.22 cm/g), while gluten free cake prepared from PPF had the lowest values which were 367.33 cm3, 185.42 g, 4.75 cm and 1.94 cm/g, respectively. The highest Fracturability was recorded in the control (65.25 N) while the lowest value (53.48 N ) was recorded in PPF cookies. Thus, the higher cake expansion and in turn higher specific volume would be an expected product of popping process. The lowest rate of Hardness values was noticed after storage period (5 days) in PPF cake samples. Rate of chewiness, gumminess and resilience also were the lowest values in PPF cake samples. Generally, PPF based cookies (cake prepared from popped popcorn) were more acceptable as it had the highest overall acceptability sensory attributes in both prepared cake and cookies.