TECHNOLOGICAL QUALITY AND BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS OF PANETTONE FORMULATED WITH HUITLACOCHE AND DEFATTED BURITI FLOURS USING A CONSTRAINED MIXTURE DESIGN

Incorporating unconventional ingredients into bakery products offers opportunities to diversify formulations and valorize regional biological resources. However, replacing refined wheat flour can modify product structure, requiring a balance between technological performance and bioactive composition. This study evaluated the effects of whole huitlacoche flour and defatted buriti flour on crumb texture, specific volume, bioactive compounds, and antioxidant capacity of panettone using a constrained simplex-centroid mixture design. Refined wheat flour represented 85–100% of the flour blend, while huitlacoche and buriti flours each ranged from 0 to 15%, resulting in 12 experimental runs. Responses comprised crumb firmness and resilience, specific volume, total soluble phenolic compounds (TSPC), total flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, total carotenoids, and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). Bioactive compounds were expressed per 100 g of dry matter as milligrams of gallic acid equivalents (GAE), quercetin equivalents (QE), catechin equivalents (CE), and βcarotene equivalents, respectively; ORAC was expressed as micromoles of Trolox equivalents (TE). Statistical modeling adopted a significance level of P < 0.10 and a coefficient of determination criterion of R² > 0.80. Firmness ranged from 1.61 to 6.38 N, resilience from 0.127 to 0.205, and specific volume from 1.63 to 3.63 L·kg-1 . The wheatonly formulation exhibited the lowest firmness and highest resilience and specific volume. Substitution with 15% buriti flour yielded the highest firmness and lowest specific volume, whereas 15% huitlacoche flour produced values of 3.56 N and 2.35 L·kg-1 , respectively. TSPC ranged from 130.94 to 240.41 mg GAE·100 g-1 , flavonoids from 25.50 to 44.71 mg QE·100 g-1 , proanthocyanidins from 15.51 to 30.33 mg CE·100 g-1 , and carotenoids from 2.16 to 10.99 mg β-carotene equivalents per 100 g-1 . ORAC ranged from 128.72 to 197.06 µmol TE·100 g-1 . The highest TSPC content occurred with 15% huitlacoche flour, while 15% buriti flour yielded the highest carotenoid content and ORAC. Combining 7.5% of each alternative flour produced the highest flavonoid and proanthocyanidin contents. The fitted models showed R² values ranging from 0.8174 to 0.968. The multiple-response desirability analysis returned an overall desirability of 0.5454, reflecting a compromise between technological properties and bioactive composition. Overall, the alternative flours increased the measured bioactive compounds relative to the wheat-only formulation, although higher substitution levels adversely affected crumb texture and expansion. The mixture design characterized these formulation-dependent trade-offs, supporting the development of diversified panettone products that combine regional ingredient valorization with technological quality.