Functional and physicochemical properties of wheat, cassava, and bamboo shoot composite flours and bread

The need to combat food insecurity and malnutrition has seen industries focus on enriching indigenous staple foods with locally available nutritious but underutilised food crops. Bamboo shoot (BS) is one such crops that has drawn significant global interest owing to its high nutrient content, health-promoting elements and low fat. This study aimed at evaluating the proximate composition, physicochemical, and functional properties of wheat-cassava-BS composite flours and their respective loaves of bread. Five levels of BS (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10%) were substituted for wheat-cassava using 80:20 percent wheat: cassava mixture as control. The flours were analysed for water absorption capacity, Normal Falling Number (NFN) and dough softening. Bread samples were baked from each of the formulated composite flours and analysed for nutritional composition and physical properties. Water absorption increased with an increase in BS substitution while there was a reduction of 16.8% in the normal falling number from the control. 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 [BI]) from the control. However, the crumb BI for all the BS composite-bread samples were not significantly (p > 0.05) different. Bamboo shoots had 16.6% ash, 19.7% 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 bread with 10% BS had the highest total ash, crude fibre, and protein at 4.51%, 5.26%, and 26.4% compared to the control that had 0.66%, 0.88%, and 1.55%, respectively. Results of this study show that BS flour can be blended with wheat-cassava composite to increase BS utilisation and improve the nutritional value of developed products, thus providing diversification in bakery products.