Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) puroindoline functionality in bread making and its impact on bread quality

•Bread was prepared from gluten–starch blends with different PIN levels.•High PIN levels yielded bread with homogeneous crumb with fine pores.•PINs did not impact dough extensibility nor dough liquor composition.•Removing lipids yielded less uniform crumb structures.

Wheat puroindolines (PINs) spontaneously adsorb at air/water interfaces and show excellent foaming properties. They can positively impact bread quality, in which the formation of stable foam is important for product quality. The impact of endogenous PINs on bread quality was studied by preparing gluten–starch blends from isolated gluten and starch fractions with different PIN levels, which allowed largely retaining the interaction between PINs and flour components. Our results indicate that blends with high PIN levels yielded more homogeneous crumb structures with fine gas cells than bread made with blends containing medium or low PIN levels. However, the mechanism by which PINs exert this crumb improving effect is not clear. Varying PIN levels impacted neither dough extensibility nor did it result in different PIN levels in dough liquor. Lipid removal yielded bread with a less homogeneous crumb gas cell distribution, indicating that lipids also are required to obtain good crumb structure.