Rheological and textural characterization of batter and sponge cake formulated with dry-fractionated legume proteins as egg-replacer.

The interest in plant-based protein ingredients is growing consistently and common foods with plant-based protein alternatives can be found in the market. Dry-fractionated protein concentrates (DFp) are obtained using sustainable technology that preserves all the functionality associated with the native structure of proteins, such as foaming, gelling, and emulsification abilities. For this reason, they could be used as egg-replacers in the formulation of bakery products. In this research the use of DFp from chickpea, lentil, and mung bean as egg-replacers in sponge cake formulation at different amounts (i.e., 20, 30, 40%) was evaluated. The rheological and structural characteristics of the batter and the sponge cakes were assessed in comparison with a control containing eggs. All the batters showed an elastic-like behavior dependent on the frequency, with a higher storage modulus (G’) than loss modulus (G”) in the frequency sweep analysis. The viscosity of the batter was higher in the DFp formulations compared to the control. Temperature sweep investigated the behavior of the batters during baking. For all the DFp batters the structure formation occurred at about 80 °C, as indicated by the increase of G’, related to the conformational changes of protein and starch. The crumb structure was similar to the control cake regardless of protein type and concentration, but the specific volume was higher in the samples containing 40% of DFp, corroborating the high viscosity in the shear rate ramp. The results show that DFp could be used as egg-replacer in sponge cakes.