Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of initial moisture content, frying time, cooling time and the addition of trehalose and biopolymer on oil absorption in wheat flour model. Wheat flour used was composed of 10.36% moisture, 8.19% protein, 0.19% fat, 0.46% ash and 80.80% carbohydrate. The flour models were prepared by adjusting the initial moisture content from 40-80% by wet weight and fried at 150? C in palm olein for 1, 3, 5 and 7 min. After the respective frying time, the fried samples were immediately dipped in petroleum ether for 2 sec. It was found that increasing of frying time affected oil content in all moisture level models. At frying time of 7 min, the lower of the intial moisture level resulted in the higher of the oil absorption. The rate of moisture loss was related to the oil absorption rate. The study on effect of cooling time on oil absorption was conducted. The flour models at three levels of initial moisture content, 40, 60 and 80%, were fried at 150? C for 5 min and let cool for 0, 1, 3 and 6 min. It was evident that increasing of cooling time resulted in increasing of absorbed oil. Results on fractal analysis revealed that apparent fractal dimension was related to the initial moisture content of the model and correlated linearly with the initial moisture content and the surface oil, at cooling time of 0 min. Effect of trehalose and HPMC on reduction of the absorbed oil could not be observed.