Effects of ingredients and pre-heating on the printing quality and dimensional stability in 3D printing of cookie dough

This work aimed to investigate the effects of composition and the internal structure of cookie doughs on its printability and baking stability using an extrusion-based three-dimensional (3D) printer. Two types of fat (butter/shortening) and three types of flour (wheat/rice/tapioca) were used, and pre-heating was included in the dough preparation step. The mechanical, thermal, and structural properties of cookie dough were measured. The yield stress values of doughs were between 4.48 and 315.70 Pa. Results showed that pre-heating increased both the yield stress values and printing pressures significantly and the two parameters were positively correlated (r = 0.985). The power-law model parameters represent the internal structure; Af and z values were in between 2303 and 20067 Pa*s1/z and 5.35–13.27, respectively. The creep-recovery analysis indicates that the Burgers model behavior is essential for complex 3D shape deposition. FTIR analysis illustrated that the vibrational properties of dough samples were significantly affected by the fat and flour types. •Flour and fat type in cookie dough affected the quality of deposited structures.•Ingredients and their interactions altered the dough rheology and microstructure.•Pre-heating of cookie dough greatly improved the quality of printed structures.•Rheological properties of doughs provided valuable insights for the printability.•Burgers model successfully captured the internal structural differences in doughs.