Understanding the texture of low moisture cereal products: mechanical and sensory measurements of crispness

The texture of extruded starch products has been measured sensorially and instrumentally. The instrumental data were analyzed using different approaches such as fractal analysis and peak analysis. The data showed useful correlations between sensory crispness and crackliness and a parameter obtained from the application of a newly developed fractal method to analyze the force deformation curve obtained from a penetration test of the cereal samples. This suggests that fractal analysis of the force‐deformation plots could be used instead of sensory analysis. Moreover, it was observed that an increase in water content altered the texture of starch based samples from crispy to crackly, whereas the texture of starch‐sucrose samples remained unchanged in the same hydration range. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry