In order to improve the nutritional quality of biscuits, a multigrain premix (MGP) was developed by using whole barley, sorghum, chickpea, pea and defatted soya flour, each at 20% level. The developed MGP had 26.28% protein, 10.13% insoluble dietary fiber and 7.38% soluble dietary fiber. The experiment was designed to optimise the MGP and wheat flour concentration for the development of multigrain biscuits with high protein, dietary fibre and to maximize the acceptability by the application of central composite rotatable design (CCRD) of Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The levels of incorporation of MGP and wheat flour were taken as variables whereas protein, soluble, insoluble fibers, biscuit dough hardness, breaking strength and overall acceptability (OAA) as responses. The optimum level of MGP and wheat flour obtained using numerical optimization was found to be 40 g and 60 g respectively. The biscuits prepared using these had 16.61% protein, 2.57% soluble fibre, and 6.67% insoluble fibre which is significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher than control biscuit.
KeywordsMultigrain Biscuits, Breaking Strength, High Protein and Fiber, Multigrain Premix, Response Surface Methodology (RSM)