Effect of enzymatic treatment on rheological properties of wafer batter and textural properties of wafer sheet.

Using strong wheat flour in wafer batter leads to various defects in the prepared wafer sheet such as hard texture and uneven shape. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of different commercial enzymes including hemicellulase, protease, and α-amylase on the chemical and rheological properties of the wafer batter and textural characteristics of the wafer sheet made of strong flour. The solvent retention capacity (SRC) of the flour demonstrated that the enzyme treatment significantly impacted the SRC profiles whereby the lowest water SRC (47 ± 0.20%) was observed in the flour containing the hemicellulase enzyme. The results also showed that the lowest consistency coefficient (1.98 ± 0.12 K, Pa.sⁿ) and the highest flow behavior index (0.752 ± 0.010) were observed in batter with added hemicellulase. This would indicate that the rheological properties in this batter had the most similarity to Newtonian fluids among all batters. According to the result, using hemicellulase or α-amylase enzymes in batter made of strong flour could help to produce lighter wafer sheets similar to regular wafer sheets prepared with soft flour. The results also confirmed that the use of hemicellulase and protease enzymes is a suitable way to resolve technological challenges arising from the use of strong flour in the wafer batter formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]