Effect of polydextrose and inulin on texture and consumer preference of short-dough biscuits with chickpea flour

• Texture of biscuits was evaluated instrumentally and sensorially.
• Chickpea flour significantly affected the sensory properties of biscuits.
• Polydextrose and inulin are good substitutes of sugar applied at the appropriate level.
• Sensory properties correlated with mechanical ones, but not with the acoustic ones.

Chickpea flour (ChF) was used to substitute wheat flour (WF) at the level of 20% to enrich the nutritional quality of biscuits. What is more, polydextrose (p) and inulin (i) were applied at 40% and 60% levels to substitute for sucrose (s). Instrumental methods (mechanical and acoustic) were used to evaluate the texture properties of the biscuits. The sensory evaluation was made by 50 untrained consumers. Moreover, water activity and colour of the biscuits were measured. The biscuits with 40% of polydextrose and 60% of inulin had the higher values of maximum force in comparison with biscuits without sugar replacers. The biscuits with 20% ChF and 40% polydextrose, as well as those with 60% polydextrose generated the strongest acoustic emission and achieved the highest values of energy of one acoustic event, number of acoustic events and sound amplitude. What is more, biscuits with polydextrose received the highest scores for their appearance in consumer test. On the contrary, biscuits with 20% ChF and 60% inulin obtained the lowest scores for all sensory descriptors. The study proved that the reformulation significantly affected water activity and colour of the analyzed short-dough biscuits.