Formation of Whipped Yeast-Free Bread Crumb with Intensive Microwave Convective Baking

The development of the technology of whipped yeast-free bread made from whole wheat flour is an urgent task of baking. To implement this technology, it is necessary to properly manage the foaming process of whipped yeast-free dough while preserving the highly porous structure of the crumb of whipped dough blanks and thin-walled bread crust during baking. The purpose of the work is to study the quality changes and establish the modes of preparation of churned yeast-free dough, as well as churned dough blanks with their combined microwave-convective heating. In the work, samples of churned yeast-free dough obtained on a mixing-churning-forming plant and churned test blanks after pre-microwave heating with a finely porous crumb formed were studied. For an objective assessment of the porosity of bread crumb, a method of optical quantitative analysis of the structure of air bubbles has been developed. It was found that, taking into account the restriction on the maximum size of air bubbles in the crumb, churned yeast-free test blanks with a density of 0.40 ± 0.03 g/cm3 with finely dispersed air bubbles were preliminarily obtained, in order to form a stable highly porous structure, they were previously subjected to microwave heating at a temperature of 65 ± 1°C in the center of the crumb, and then convective heating at at a temperature of 99 ± 1°C in the center of the crumb to form a thin-walled crust of bread. The conducted studies have shown the dependence of changes in the porosity of the crumb, the formation of its structure on the duration of microwave heating of churned dough blanks. The rational duration of pre-microwave heating of churned dough blanks is determined – 70–80 s and final convective heating during bread baking – up to 14 min. The use of combined microwave-convective heating of churned dough blanks reduces the baking process by 26 min. The presented approach, together with the method of optical evaluation of air bubbles, allows us to develop an algorithm for optimal control of the process of combined baking bread. The accelerated technology of churned yeast-free bread has been developed and is highly promising for widespread implementation in civil and military bakery.