Partial replacement of wheat flour for cowpee flour in cracker

Abstract

The influence of the partial replacement of wheat flour with cowpea flour on the sensory characteristics of the salt cracker was evaluated. For this, a mixture design was applied with substitution levels between 7,5 and 30 %. Eight runs of crackers were made and their moisture content was determined. The attributes color intensity, hardness, crispy and also overall quality was taken as design response variables. Moisture was kept below 5 % in all cases, so it was adequate. Sensory quality of the cracker decreased as the substitution increased, since the intensity of the color and hardness increased and the crack decreased. A mathematical model was obtained for each response variable: color (R²= 94%), crispy (R²= 98%), hardness (R²= 95%) and overall quality (R²= 93%). The optimization provided 4 possible solutions with a maximum substitution of 11.5%. The 10% substitution was selected with which the degree of acceptance of the cracker was evaluated through a population tasting with 100 consumers, and it reached the category corresponding “to like” on the liking level scale used.