Effect of fat and sugar replacement on rheological, textural and nutritional characteristics of multigrain cookies

Fat and sugar are responsible for the structure of cookies but make them nutritionally inferior. Therefore, in the present study, cookies with improved nutrition using whole wheat flour (WWF) and incorporation of multigrain mix (MM-oats, peas and fenugreek flours) at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% levels was studied. Further, fat was replaced using pumpkin seed (PS) or watermelon seed (WS) at 25, 50 and 75% level and sugar was replaced using dry dates (DD) or raisins (RS) separately at 20, 40 and 60%. MM having protein at 15.13% and dietary fibre at 12.83% significantly decreased the water absorption (68.1–60.6%), stability (2.52–1.35 min), amylograph peak viscosity (665–821 BU), and cookie dough hardness (1737–690.5) at 100% MM. Based on the physico-sensory analysis, 75% replacement of WWF with MM was selected for replacement of fat or sugar. Addition of PS or WS increased the dough hardness (1235–4103 g), whereas the spread ratio of cookies decreased from 6.25 and 6.31 to 5.54 and 4.06 respectively. Replacement of fat with PS at 50%, sugar by DD at 40% along with a combination of sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL) and glycerol mono stearate (GMS) showed improvement in the cookie texture. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) of cookie showed coating of starch granules and appearance of sheet-like covering of protein network. The mono and polyunsaturated fatty acid profile of cookies improved apart from a two-fold increase in protein and three-fold increase in dietary fibre.