Composite Flours

1. Introduction

In the 1960s and 1970s, composite flours very often found themselves at the focus of attention in European and international cereal research. Most of the studies in this field were supported by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

In these two decades, bread consumption increased continuously in many of the developing countries. There were three main reasons for this:

• a steadily growing population;

• changes in eating habits;

• an overall increase in income, which meant that a larger proportion of the income could be spent on food.

In most cases the wheat or wheat flour needed for making bread, rolls and pastry goods had to be imported, since the climatic conditions and soil did not permit wheat to be grown locally, or made it very difficult. In these developing countries the imports of wheat had an increasingly adverse effect on the balance of trade. For these reasons the FAO and these developing countries were interested in the possibility of replacing the wheat needed for making baked goods, and also pasta, wholly or partly with flour obtained from home-grown products. Possible sources were tuberous plants rich in starch such as cassava ²³, yams, sweet potatoes, protein-rich flours such as soy and peanuts, and other cereals including maize, rice, millet and sorghum. Although it is well known that no other crop can achieve the baking properties of wheat, composite flours became the subject of numerous studies. For the developing countries the use of composite flours had the following advantages:

• a saving of hard currency;

• promotion of high-yielding, native plant species;

• a better supply of protein for human nutrition;

• better overall use of domestic agriculture production (Berghofer, 2000; Bugusu et al., 2001).

The International Association for Cereal Science and Technology also took up this topic at an early stage (Chatelanat, 1973).

2. Definition of Composite Flours

Composite flours are quite different from the ready-mixed flours familiar to millers and bakers. Whereas ready-mixed flours contain all the non-perishable constituents of the recipe for a certain baked product, composite flours are only a mixture of different vegetable flours rich in starch or protein, with or without wheat flour, for certain groups of bakery products. This gives rise to the following definition: "Composite flours are a mixture of flours from tubers rich in starch (e.g. cassava, yam, sweet potato) and/or protein-rich flours (e.g. soy, peanut) and/or cereals (e.g. maize, rice, millet, buckwheat), with or without wheat flour" ²⁴ .

Note :

²³ Cassava (lat. Manihot esculenta); synonyms tapioca, yuca, manioc

²⁴ Given this definition, rye flour could also be considered as part of composite flours with or without wheat. Probably due to tradition and its importance for breadmaking in the northern hemisphere, it has never been considered as such.

Next Page>>>