Effect of gum arabic on the rheology of corn flour doughs and fried product quality

Small deformation stress relaxation studies were performed on corn flour dough at 48-62 %, wet basis moisture and 0-2 % gum Arabic contents. Corn doughs were sensitive to moisture contents that were reflected by the values of the elastic and viscous components. The instrumental stickiness of the dough increased markedly when the moisture content was increased. The stress decay curves were modeled by using 3-element spring-dashpot models as evidenced by low values of root mean square error. Sensory assessment of the dough as well as fried products were conducted to relate the parameters obtained from stress relaxation studies.