Production of hazelnut skin fibres and utilisation in a model bakery product

Microfluidisation was used as a potential method for the production of fibrous structure from hazelnut skin (HS), and which was evaluated as an ingredient in cake as model bakery product. More specifically, effects of different amounts of microfluidised HS on rheological behaviour of cake batter and quality parameters (texture and colour) and storage characteristics of cake products were evaluated. Furthermore, performance of microfluidised HS was compared with conventionally milled HS and cacao powder for comparison purpose. The entangled structures of microfluidised HS resulted in much higher consistency index, yield stress and viscoelastic moduli values in batter samples than conventionally milled hazelnut skin. Highly shredded fibrous structure of microfluidised HS provided gluten-like strength and elasticity to cake samples resulting in higher springiness and firmness values. Darker crumb colour of the cake samples was caused by the homogenous distribution of fibrous microfluidised HS. Detailed staling analysis through X-ray and Fourier transform infrared measurements showed that microfluidised HS containing cake samples had lower retrogradation and staling tendency due to their lower starch content, and higher water holding ability. Findings of this study showed that microfluidised HS could be potentially utilised as an ingredient in bakery products.