Sensory and nutritive profiles of biscuits from whole grain sorghum and pearl millet plus soya flour with and without sourdough fermentation

Whole grain sorghum–soya and pearl millet–soya composite biscuits, with and without sourdough, were produced with the aim of developing a ready‐to‐eat supplementary food for nutritionally at‐risk school‐age children in Africa. Descriptive sensory profiling revealed that the biscuits were indistinguishable from a whole grain wheat biscuit standard in terms of hardness, roughness and coarseness, but they were darker, less crisp, less dry and denser with distinctive sorghum flavour. Biscuits containing sourdough were sourer to taste and had more aroma and a more fermented taste and odour character; other examples were more rancid and bitter with less sorghum‐type flavour. Biscuits without sourdough were blander and sweeter. Two biscuits per day will, on average, contribute 13% of the Dietary Reference Intake of fibre for children aged 4–8 years and 16%, 11% and 8% of Mg, Fe and Zn, respectively. The sourdough biscuits had 10–17% less phytate, and phenolic content while antioxidant activity increased.