Quality-driven design of sponge cake: Insights into reactivity, furan mitigation and consumer liking

This work highlights the importance of considering reactivity into the quality-driven design of heat-treated foods, which should cover the mitigation of process-induced contaminants and the improvement of the sensory properties of the foodstuff. The joint effects of formulation and baking conditions on reactivity and several quality aspects (i.e. volatile generation, physical properties, sensory and consumer tests), followed by product optimization (i.e. consumer liking and furan mitigation) were studied. While key markers are affected by all factors and their interactions, the effect of sugar and whole egg are the clearest. Furan would be predominantly generated from glucose via caramelization and/or Maillard reaction, whereas the formation of Strecker aldehydes and lipid oxidation products would be favoured by precursors in whole egg. Formulations with a low glucose content, baked at low temperatures/short times lead to optimal products. Egg-based ingredient content may be set according to preference or by applying different optimization approaches.