Effects of chickpea flour on wheat pasting properties and bread making quality

Pulses (pea, chickpea, lentil, bean) are an important source of food proteins. They contain high amounts of lysine, leucine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and arginine and provide well balanced essential amino acid profiles when consumed with cereals. The influence of partial substitution of wheat flour with chickpea flour at the levels of 10, 20 and 30 % was carried out to study their pasting properties and bread making quality. Pasting properties were determined using Micro Visco-Amylo-Graph Analyser and Farinograph. The pasting temperature increased with increase chickpea flour concentration and the temperature of pasting ranged between 62 to 66.5 °C. No peak of viscosity curve was found for pure chickpea flour and have higher pasting temperature than pure wheat flour. Chickpea flour addition increased the water absorption and dough development time (p < 0.05), Regarding dough stability, it appears that 10 % chickpea exhibited higher stability and resistance to mechanical mixing values than the control, while it decreased as the substitute level increases from 20 % to 30 %. The dough surface of the wheat dough and the blend with 10 % was classified as "normal", however the blend with 20 % and 30 % produced "sticky" dough surface. The presence of chickpea flour in dough affected bread quality in terms of volume, internal structure and texture. The color of crust and crumb got progressively darker as the level of chickpea flour substitution increased. While the substitution of wheat flour with 10 % chickpea flour gave loaves as similar as control.