Flour from wheat cultivars of varying hardness produces semi-sweet biscuits with varying textural and structural properties

•Semi-sweet biscuits were prepared from flour from wheat cvs. with varying hardness.•Hard wheat flour yields harder biscuits than soft wheat flour.•Biscuit texture strongly depends on biscuit structure, and mainly on porosity.•Biscuit porosity mainly depends on pore size and thus dough expansion during baking.•Biscuit matrix strength also affects biscuit texture.

Semi-sweet biscuits were prepared from flour from wheat cultivars with Single Kernel Characterization System hardness values ranging from 22 to 92. The impact of flour protein level on biscuit properties was compensated for by diluting flour samples of higher protein level with their isolated prime starch fraction. Biscuits prepared from hard wheat flour showed higher fracture stress than their soft wheat flour counterparts. Softer texture mainly resulted from higher porosity, resulting from larger pores. Furthermore, biscuit matrix strength also contributed to biscuit texture. Biscuit texture is strongly affected by wheat hardness and results from the interplay between different hardness-associated flour properties (damaged starch, protein quality, …) as well as from their effect on both biscuit structure and matrix properties.