Sourdough fermentation of bakery products is a well-established and widespread technique to confer an added value to the resulting food. In recent decades, gluten-free raw materials have gained more attention due to the diffusion of food disorders such as coeliac disease, but, at the same time, they present difficult manipulation and scarce technological properties because of the absence of gluten. For this reason, the present work was aimed at selecting starter cultures for sourdough application that are isolated from fermentation of sorghum flour. Three isolates of Lactobacillus fermentum, Weissella cibaria, and Weissella confusa were selected for the following properties: exopolysaccharide synthesis, acidification, CO2 production, and amylase activity. The investigated phenotypic characteristics were confirmed by genomic analyses, which also highlighted other potentially beneficial features for use in bakery products employment. These strains, together with bakery yeast, were used for bread preparation using sorghum and wheat flour and after 24 h of fermentation the resulting dough was analyzed to assess the improvement of its characteristics. The presence of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) had a great impact on the final dough, and the best preparation, from a rheological point of view, resulted in one made of sorghum and wheat flour with added LAB and bakery yeast, whose resulting characteristics were similar to all wheat flour doughs. The results of this study suggest a potential application of the selected starters in sorghum composite bread and should be validated with data from large-scale pilot tests conducted in industrial bakeries.

Five commercial hazelnut/cocoa spreads with different compositions were tested by rheology/tribology. The impact of each formulation on the structural/lubricant performances was investigated. Rotational/oscillatory rheology was chosen to assess material behavior during flow. Viscosity variation as a function of temperature and chamber geometry was evaluated. Oscillatory mode tests were carried out to obtain information on product viscoelasticity. Tribological analysis was performed at different temperatures aiming at simulating the chewing/swallowing process. All samples were categorized as pseudo-plastic and viscoelastic materials, with the elastic component prevailing over the viscous one. Major differences were detected in terms of consistency index, depending on the total lipid content. Temperature increase enhanced spread fluidity with a decreasing viscosity according to the Arrhenius model (R 2 > 0.942) and greater values of activation energy reflecting higher sensitivity to microstructural changes. An inverse relationship between Casson viscosity η c ð Þand sugar/fat ratio highlighted additional correlations between structural parameters and spread formulation. Tribological measurements at 25 C highlighted that, at the initial eating stage, the friction factor (0.112-0.262 at sliding velocity of 8 Â 10 À6 m/s) was strongly affected by either the amounts of solid fat or hazelnut percentage. Tribological data corroborated the theory for which tribology and rheology cover different domains.

In this work, extra-virgin olive oil (EVO)- and sunflower oil (SFO)-based oleogels were structured using rice bran wax (RBW) at 10% by weight (w/w). Bamboo fiber milled with 40 (BF40), 90 (BF90) and 150 (BF150) µm of average size was added as a structuring agent. The effect of fiber addition and cooling temperature (0, 4, and 25 °C) on thermal and structural parameters of achieved gels was assessed by rheological (both in rotational and oscillatory mode), texture, and differential scanning calorimetry tests. Oleogelation modified the rheological behavior of EVO and SFO, thus shifting from a Newtonian trend typical of oils to a pseudoplastic non-Newtonian behavior in gels. Moreover, oleogels behaved as solid-like systems with G′ > G″, regardless of the applied condition. All samples exhibit a thermal-reversible behavior, even though the presence of hysteresis suggests a partial reduction in structural properties under stress. Decreasing in cooling temperature negatively contributed to network formation, despite being partially recovered by low-granulometry fiber addition. The latter dramatically improved either textural, rheological, or stability parameters of gels, as compared with only edible oil-based systems. Finally, wax/gel compatibility affected the crystallization enthalpy and final product stability (gel strength) due to different gelator–gelator and gelator–solvent interactions.