Effect of infrared finishing process parameters on physical, mechanical, and sensory properties of par-fried, infrared-finished gluten-free donuts

• Infrared radiation can simulate the heat flux profile of a frying process, yielding a product with a fried-like texture.
• Donuts prepared using infrared finishing had lower fat content than fully-fried donuts.
• Gluten-free donuts had significantly lower fat content than wheat donuts.
• Instrumental properties of gluten-free IR-finished donuts varied significantly with infrared oven settings used.
• Gluten-free donuts were not as sensorially acceptable as wheat donuts.

Infrared radiation (IR) can simulate the heat flux created during the frying process, yielding products with fried-like textures but lower fat content. The objective of this study was to determine the process parameters needed to produce partially-fried, infrared-finished gluten-free (GF) donuts having similar instrumental and sensorial properties to fully-fried wheat and GF donuts but lower fat content. Eight different IR oven parameter settings were tested. All GF donuts had significantly lower (p ⩽ 0.05) fat content (23.7–28.2%) than the wheat control (33.7%). Several IR oven parameters yielded donuts that were instrumentally similar to the wheat and GF controls. All IR-finished GF donuts received significantly lower overall acceptance scores (3.81–3.44) than the wheat control (6.94), although they had similar sensory scores to the GF control (4.54). Infrared radiation may be used to finish-fry partially-fried GF donuts to produce donuts significantly lower in fat, yet instrumentally and sensorially similar to fully-fried GF donuts.