Publication no. C-1997-0820-06R |  VIEW ARTICLE

NOTE: Use of Elongational Viscosity to Estimate Cookie Diameter (1).

R. A. Miller (2,3,4) and R. C. Hoseney (2,4). (1) Contribution 97-185-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Manhattan, KS. (2) Research associate and professor, respectively, Department of Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. (3) Corresponding author. Phone: 913/537-5199; Fax: 913/537-7477. E-mail: <r and r@ kansas.net> (4) R&R Research Services, Inc., 8831 Quail Lane, Manhattan, KS 66502. Cereal Chem. 74(5):614-616. Accepted May 16, 1997. Copyright 1997 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc.

Cookie diameter is a function of spread rate and set time during baking. Dough viscosity appears to control cookie spread rate and, thus, will affect final cookie diameter. The technique of lubricated uniaxial compression was used to measure the elongational viscosity of cookie dough. Full-formula cookie doughs made with a commercial hard wheat flour had a significantly higher elongational viscosity (5.88 × 10(^6) ± 9.17 × 10(^4) Pa·S) than cookie doughs made with a commercial soft wheat flour (2.17 × 10(^6) ± 1.05 × 10(^4) Pa·S). Elongational viscosity correlated significantly (P < 0.05) with the diameter (r = -0.796) of cookies made with flours from various soft wheat cultivars. Using a simplified cookie formula decreased the testing time without greatly changing the correlation coefficient (r = -0.738). Thus, lubricated uniaxial compression appears to be an appropriate technique to measure the viscosity of cookie doughs and may be useful for predicting the cookie baking quality of soft wheat flours.