Addition of tomato, blueberry and strawberry to biscuit formulation

Abstract

In the present work, sweet and salty biscuits were prepared with natural ingredients and water was replaced with juice or pulp of different vegetable sources. Strawberry or blueberry pulp or juice were incorporated into sweet biscuits, while tomato juice or pulp was incorporated into salty biscuits. The objective of the work was to evaluate the modifications in the texture and in the color of the dough and biscuits due to the incorporation of these horticultural products.
Results showed that when water was replaced with juice, small changes were observed in the texture of the dough, but when the pulp was used the firmness, consistency, cohesiveness and elasticity increased compared to the control dough. Moreover, the addition of tomato did not modify the texture of the developed products.
When juice was added to sweet formulations, biscuits leavened better, probably because of the acidity of the fruit.
On the other hand, with pulp incorporation, blueberries biscuits presented a smooth texture (low stress and low Young's Modulus) while strawberries biscuits were hard (high fracture stress). Regarding the
color, dough acquired soft reddish tones when incorporating tomatoes and strawberries, and purple tones with blueberries. Nonetheless, these tones become slightly brownish during cooking.