Rheology of Model Dough Formulation

Dough is generally considered a viscoelastic material, and its elasticity is attributed to the hydrated gluten matrix. Since starch is a major constituent of flour (~70 wt% on dry basis) we may expect it to contribute to dough rheology in a non-trivial manner. Considering dough to belong to the generic class of soft solid materials, we use the Strain-Rate Frequency Superposition (SRFS) technique to study rheology of various model dough compositions in which the starch/gluten ratio is systematically varied from 100/0 to 0/100. We find that for compositions containing 0-25% gluten the SRFS superposition principle works well, while for compositions containing greater than 25% gluten the quality of SRFS mastercurves deteriorates gradually. Thus we propose that starch particles contribute substantially to the rheology of dough containing up to 25% gluten.