PhD Oral Defense: Use of Millets for Partial Wheat Replacement in Bakery Products

Millets are one of oldest of cereals, cultivated since ancient times. The millets are best known for their drought resistance, shorter cultivation cycle and capability to grow in poor soils. Millets provide a wide range of health benefits and they are a good source of energy, proteins, minerals, vitamins and essential amino acids.

Bakery products account for a major part of the processed food industry. Bakery products are usually made with wheat flour, due to its unique functional characteristics to develop a gluten network when it is mixed with water. This gluten formation is essential in producing good baked products and the quality of the bakery products depends largely on the wheat quality. It is possible to replace the wheat flour in bakery products to a certain degree by using other cereal grains.

Three minor millet grains, namely little (Panicum miliare or Panicum sumatrense), foxtail (Setaria italica)), and barnyard millets (Echinochloa colona), were obtained from India and were used in this study. The primary objective was to explore the suitability of these three millet flours to replace wheat flour in the production of bread and cake. This objective was achieved by understanding the wheat-millet composite flours rheological behaviors, baking performance, change in secondary structures and heat and mass transfer during baking process.