Fractal Determination of Crisp or Crackly Textures

This paper demonstrates a different and novel approach to fractal analysis of multi‐peak curves obtained on compression of expanded extruded rice with a range of water contents. The importance of high resolution measurements (down to 5 μm) and the correlation with a sensory panel's perception of different textures is shown. Sensorial textures were correlated with differences in measured line lengths as spatial resolutions (from 10.240 to 0.005 mm) were doubled during analysis by a simple compression test. Crispness and crackliness perceived by a sensory panel correlated with differences between different consecutive pairs of line lengths. This showed how mechanical testing can be used to evaluate crispness and crackliness of samples.