Porous Crumb Structure of Leavened Baked Products

Quality evaluation of the porous crumb structure of leavened baked goods, especially bread, has become a vast study area of which various research studies have been carried out up to date. Here is a brief review focusing on those studies with six main parts including porous crumb structure development, crumb cellular structure analysis, application of fractal dimension for evaluating crumb cellular structure, mechanical and sensorial properties of crumb structure, changes of porous crumb structure with staling, and modifications to obtain a well-developed porous crumb structure and retard staling. Development of the porous crumb structure mainly depends on dough ingredients and processing conditions. Hence, certain modifications for those factors (incorporating food hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, improvers, etc.) have been conducted by cereal sciences for obtaining well-developed porous crumb structure and retard staling. Several image analysis methods are available for analyzing microstructural features of porous crumb structure, which can directly affect the mechanical and sensorial properties of the final product. A product with a well-developed porous crumb structure may contain the property of higher gas retention capacity which results in a product with increased volume and reduced crumb hardness with appealing sensorial properties.