Comparative study of different fermentation and cooking methods on dough rheology and the quality of Chinese steamed/baked bread

The effects of different fermentation (yeast and sourdough) and cooking (steam and baking) methods on the physicochemical, rheological, and morphological properties of dough, and nutritional property of Chinese steamed/baked bread were investigated. Compared with the yeast-fermented dough, G′ and G″ were decreased by 18% and 7% for the sourdough-fermented dough. Compared to the fermented dough, the content of the total amino acid in the corresponding steamed/baked bread was decreased. The content of the essential amino acids in Chinese baked bread was decreased by 29.1% and 7% with the yeast and sourdough fermentation, respectively. The protein digestibility of steamed bread fermented by sourdough (91.12%) is the highest among all the samples. Considering different cooking methods, the protein digestibility of sourdough-fermented bread was 10% higher than that of yeast-fermented bread. This research provides a theoretical basis for improving the quality of Chinese steamed or baked bread in industrialization. Practical applications Fermentation and cooking methods have an obvious influence on the quality of dough as well as Chinese bread. This study focused on Chinese bread processing and can provide valuable information for industrial production and consumers. In this study, it was found that sourdough fermentation (SF) can increase the digestibility of protein and SFB-S shows the highest among all the samples. Compared with other products, steamed bread fermented by sourdough has higher nutritional value. This study helps consumers choose flour products with different fermentation and cooking methods and provides a theoretical basis for the industrialization process of Chinese steamed/baked bread.