Abstract
An attempt was made to characterize the rheological properties of a series of the baked systems prepared from the mixtures of albumen foam and wheat flours so as to clarify the rheological characteristics of sponge cakes, which are being utilized widely for providing a variety of Western-style cakes. The baked systems to be tested in this study were divided into seven categories according to the aging time before baking (i.e. 9min, 20min, 40min, and 60min) and the kind of wheat flours (i.e. weak-strength and strong-strength flours, and wheat starch granules). The results obtained from the rheological measurements suggested that all the baked systems can be characterized by the retarded elastic body described with the instantaneous modulus E_O. The factors affecting the increasing value oiE_O were long span of aging time before baking with the mixture consisting of strong-wheat flour, while weak-strength flour and starch granules played a role in decreasing value of E_O. Consequently, the most preferable value of E_O estimated from the sensory assessment as a sponge cake was distributed in a range from 2×10^5 to 3×10^5 dyne/cm^2 for the baked systems containing about 20% weak-strength flour.
