Cookie making behavior of wheat-barley flour blends and effects on antioxidant properties

•Physicochemical, color and pasting properties of wheat-barley flour blends are reported.•Positive correlation between final viscosity and cookie snap force was observed.•Antioxidant potential increased as the proportion of barley flour increased.•Baking lowered total phenolic and flavonoid content.•Metal chelating and antioxidant activity increased upon baking.

Refined wheat flour was replaced with whole barley flour at varying levels and the blends were evaluated for their cookie making behavior. The spread factor of cookies decreased as the proportion of barley flour increased while snap force and water activity increased significantly upto 114.7 N and 0.397 in only barley flour cookies. Increasing levels of barley flour lead to a significant decrease in L∗ and b∗ values of cookie dough. Peak viscosity (PV) and final viscosity (FV) increased significantly as the levels of barley flour increased. A significant increase in antioxidant activity (AOA), total phenolic content (TPC), metal chelating activity (MCA), reducing power (RP) and total flavonoid content (TFC) was observed as the proportion of barley flour increased. Baking lead to a significant decrease in TPC and TFC whereas AOA, MCA and RP increased. Baking lead to a significant increase in the non-enzymatic browning index of cookies.