Use of triticale flours in cracker-making

In general, triticale is not a good raw material for bread making. However, some varieties produce flours of good quality for cookie production. It is a well-known fact that cracker quality depends on the flour used for cracker production. All over the world, a blend of hard and soft wheat is used; however, the use of soft flour is recommended. Since additional soft wheat cultivation is not allowed in Argentina, triticale represents a good alternative for cracker production. In the present study 15 triticale cultivars and a flour of optimum cracker quality were used to produce crackers in order to establish criteria to evaluate flour quality in cracker-making. The factors that determine cracker quality, as well as the relationships between different quality parameters were investigated. Electrophoretic patterns of triticale proteins extracted from flours were determined. Five cultivars produced crackers of similar quality to that of standard flour of industrial good quality. A protein band with a 110 kDa molecular mass influenced flour quality, measured as the ratio of the mean between weight and length, WL and the height of ten crackers (H 10), WL/H 10, while other flour constituents such as pentosans, soluble proteins and damaged starch could affect its weight.