Impact of potassium bromate and potassium iodate in a pound cake system

This study investigates the impact of the oxidants potassium bromate and potassium iodate (8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 micromol/g dry matter of egg white protein) on pound cake making. The impact of the oxidants on egg white characteristics was studied in a model system. Differential scanning calorimetry showed that the oxidants caused egg white to denature later. During heating in a rapid visco analyzer, the oxidants caused the free sulfhydryl (SH) group levels to decrease more intensively and over a smaller temperature range. The oxidants made the proteins more resistant to decreases in protein extractability in sodium dodecyl sulfate containing buffer during cake recipe mixing and less resistant to such decreases during cake baking. We assume that, during baking, the degree to which SH/disulfide exchange and SH oxidation can occur depends on the properties of the protein at the onset of the process. In our view, the prevention of extractability loss during mixing increased the availability of SH groups and caused more such loss during baking. During cooling, all cakes baked with added oxidants showed less collapse. On the basis of the presented data, we put forward that only those protein reactions that occur during baking contribute to the formation of a network that supports final cake structure and prevents collapse.