Abstract
The effects of absorbed moisture on textural properties were studied with twenty-seven kinds of commercial confections made from different starch ingredients (i.e., wheat, corn, potato and rice) and natural fried chips made of potato, fruits and vegetables.
(1) On moisture absorption at R.H. 43-97%, the initial elastic modulus of all the test samples decreased with increasing absorbed moisture.
(2) Changes in the maximum breaking force and breaking energy began to occur at R.H. 43-56%, and these characteristic breaking properties could be observed within R.H. 68-88%; some samples became softer and a lot of the other samples became harder at approximately 9-16g of water/100g of dry matter.
(3) A high positive correlation between the breaking properties of samples under high moisture surroundings and their gelatinization characteristics was obtained.
