Abstract:
The need to combat food insecurity and malnutrition has seen industries focus on enriching indigenous staple foods with locally available nutritious underutilised food crops. Bamboo shoots (Yushania al pi na) have drawn significant global interest owing to their high nutritional content, low fat and health-promoting compounds. This study evaluated the composite flours for rheological properties and the wheat (Triticum aestivum), cassava (Mani hot esculenta), bamboo shoot (BS) composite bread for physicochemical, microbial, and sensory properties. Five levels of BS (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10%) were substituted for wheat-cassava using an 80:20 percent wheat: cassava mixture as control. The flours were analysed for water absorption, normal falling number, dough stability and dough softening. Bread samples were baked from the fonnulated composite flours and analysed for physical, nutritional, microbial, and sensory properties. Water absorption increased with an increase in BS substitution, whereas there was a reduction of 16.8% in the nonnal falling number. Dough softening increased with an increase in BS inclusion up to 7.5%. All the bread made from BS flour had significantly different (p< 0.05) physical properties (loaf volume, density, specific volume, and Browning Index) from the control. Bamboo shoots had l6.6% ash, l9.7% fibre, 29.4% crude protein, and the lowest energy-to-protein ratio of 9.78 kcal/g. The proximate components of the blended bread increased with an increase in BS substitution. Composite flour with 10% BS had the highest total ash, crude fibre, and protein at 4.51%, 5.26%, and 26.4% compared to control, which had 0.66%, 0.88%, and 1.55%, respectively. The total viable counts ranged from 2.62 cfu/g to 3.67 cfu/g, while the total coliform ranged from 1.43 cfu/g to 2.97 cfu/g and yeast and mould counts from 2.89 cfu/g to 3.59 cfu/g. Escherichia 00|i was not detected in the bread samples. The Principle Component Analysis showed the existence of 3 principle components that explained a total variation of 78.5%, with crumb colour, density, aroma, aftertaste, stickiness, grittiness, cohesiveness, and chewiness as predominant factors. However, 2.5% BS flour bread had no significant difference (p> 0.05) in taste, aroma, crumb colour, crust colour, and overall acceptability compared to the control. Results of this study show that BS flour can be blended with wheat-cassava composite to increase BS utilization and improve the nutritional value of developed products, thus providing diversification in bakery products
