Addition of phenolic compounds to bread: antioxidant benefits and impact on food structure and sensory characteristics

The use of flours or phenolic extracts obtained from non-traditional sources or agri-food industry by-products has been a strategy used to formulate new bakery products with characteristics of a functional food. However, phenolic compounds present great structural diversity, as well as the ability to interact in a complex way with the macromolecules that constitute the bread matrix. Therefore, the addition of these flours, extracts or pure compounds produces various effects on the microstructure of bread, and several of its sensory properties. This is mainly due to interactions between phenolic compounds and gluten proteins. The objective of this review is to analyze some of the most recent published works on the addition of phenolic compounds in wheat bread to identify the type of positive and negative effects that have been observed and how they can be related to the physicochemical interactions between phenolic compounds and the macromolecules that constitute the food matrix, mainly gluten. The effect of monomeric and polymeric phenolic compounds on the strength of these interactions and on the properties of dough and bread are discussed.