Evaluation of sugar replacers in short dough biscuit production E. Gallagher a,b , C.M. O’Brien a , A.G.M. Scannell c , E.K. Arendt a, * a Department of Food Science, Food Technology and Nutrition, University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork, Ireland b Teagasc, The National Food Centre, Dunsinea, Castleknock, Dublin 15, Ireland c Department of Food Science, National University of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland Received 21 October 2001 Abstract Sugarinhibitsglutendevelopmentduringdoughmixingbycompetingwiththeflourfortherecipewater,resultinginlesstough and more crumbly biscuits. Commercially available Raftilose, which acts as an oligofructose and a sugar replacer was used in the recipeswherethesugarwasreducedby20–30%.Itwasfoundthatthesugarreplacerdidnotexertthesamehardeningeffectonthe dough as the granulated sugar, therefore values for dough hardness were found to be lower than those obtained for the standard biscuit. Peak force values of the reduced sugar biscuits were found to be significantly lower than the control biscuit (P < 0:05), indicating a lower snapping characteristic, and therefore softer eating characteristics. Only those biscuits with the highest level of sugar replacement showed different surface colour attributes. At the lower and medium levels of sugar replacement, oligofructose can be used successfully to reduce sugar in short dough biscuits. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sugar replacers; Oligofructose; Biscuit texture 1. Introduction Semi-sweetshortdoughbiscuitscontainhighlevelsof fat and sugar. The sugar affects flavour, dimensions, colour, hardness and surface finish. Sugar can inhibit glutteddevelopmentduringdoughmixingbycompeting withtheflourforrecipewater.Sucroseisthemainsugar utilisedinthebiscuitindustry.Howevertodaysuchhigh levels of sugar are undesirable. Therefore the objective of this study was to replace sugar with a sugar replacer named Raftilose. Raftilose is a chicory based ingredient thatcanbeusedtoimprovetasteandtexture,replacefat or improve low-fat formulations, replace carbohydrates and help reduce the caloric content of food while in- creasing fibre content Young, 1997. Raftilose is an oli- gosaccharide and has been successfully used in food products as a sugar replacer, but no information is available on its use in short dough biscuits. 2. Materials and methods The biscuits were produced as described by Wehrle, Gallagher, Neville, Keogh, and Arendt (1999), except that 20–30% of the original sugar weight was replaced by Raftilose (R20%, R25%, R30%). The quality of the dough and biscuits were evaluated using the following tests: dough hardness, biscuit snap test, moisture con- tent, water activity, surface colour and dimensions. All test methods are described by Wehrle et al. (1999). Statistical analysis was carried out according to Wehrle et al. (1999). 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Dough hardness The effects of the sugar replacer, Raftilose, on the texture profile analysis of a standard short dough are shown in Fig. 1. Significant differences in dough hard- ness were revealed. Values for the standard biscuit av- eraged 24,800 g, whereas values for the test biscuits ranged from 20,400 g at the lower level of addition to 10,400 g at the highest level (30%). Significantly lower Journal of Food Engineering 56 (2003) 261–263 www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ353-21-4902064; fax: þ353-21- 4270213. E-mail address: e.arendt@ucc.ie (E.K. Arendt). 0260-8774/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0260-8774(02)00267-4