Understanding the Effect of Sugar and Sugar Replacement in Short Dough Biscuits

Sucrose is the main sugar used in short dough biscuit formula, and it plays an important role in the biscuit manufacturing as well as in the biscuits final quality. However, for health reasons, high levels of sucrose are undesirable, making sucrose replacement an important issue to study. The present study focused on sucrose reduction and its replacement by polyols (erythritol and maltitol) in short dough biscuits. The effects were investigated in a model system composed of gluten and different sugars (sucrose, maltitol, and erythritol), in biscuit dough, and in baked biscuits. Modulated thermal analysis showed that sucrose decreases the glass transition temperature; however, for both polyols studied, no transition was found due to a plasticization effect. The gelatinization of starch in the biscuits was not affected by the sugar or quantity of sugar used. Temperature sweeps of short dough revealed that the presence of sugar delays the transitions. Furthermore, G * increased with sucrose replacement, with the smallest changes for the maltitol-containing biscuits compared to the control. Finally, texture and dimension analyses were carried out. Sugar-free and erythritol-containing biscuits were compact, elastic, and resistant to the breaking force compared to the control biscuits and the maltitol-containing biscuits.