Physicochemical and Pasting Properties of Rice Flour, Banana Flour, and Job’s Tears Flour: Flour Blends and Application in Gluten-free Cookies

This research aimed to study some properties of three flour alternative sources from rice flour (RF), banana flour (BF), and job’s tears flour (JTF) when applied for cookies preparation. Physicochemical properties including water absorption index (WAI), water solubility index (WSI), oil absorption capacity (OAC), and pasting profiles of the flours, as well as of flour blends were determined. JTF presented the highest WAI (5.51 g/g) whereas RF indicated the highest WSI (2.73 g/g), and WF and RF exhibited the highest OAC (1.01, and 0.96 g/g, respectively). The flour blends from various ratios of RF, BF, and JTF as RF60 (60:30:10), RF50 (50:35:15), RF40 (40:40:20) were prepared and used to substitute wheat flour in cookies products. Appearance, spread ratio, color, hardness and sensory evaluation (9 points-hedonic test) of the produced cookies were evaluated and compared with the products using wheat flour (control). The products from RF60 exhibited comparable appearance and crispiness to control while their overall acceptability scores were a bit lower (5.79) than that of the control (7.20). However, considering gluten-free as a health concern, 80% of the panelists were willing to buy the cookies product from RF60 while only 36.67% had chosen the product from wheat flour. The results demonstrated the flour blend produced from rice, banana, and job’s tears has a high potential for application in gluten-free cookies products.