EFFECT OF HYDRATED CHIA SEEDS ADDITION AS FAT SUBSTITUTE IN COOKIES FORMULATION

Over the past years, the consumer’s interest for healthier products have increased, and the elaboration of cookies with reduced fat and fiber content will contribute for this growing market. The objective of this work was the production, evaluation and characterization of cookies with vegetable fat replacement for hydrated chia seeds (HCS). It was used a factorial design with two variables (2² - fat and chia seeds) and different levels (0 to 1 - keeping the proportion of chia seeds and fat always equal to 1), totalizing 19 experimental trials. The experimental design was in duplicate, and the central point in triplicate. The proportion of water used to hydrate the chia seeds was 1:1 (w:w). The cookies were elaborated using the creamed stage, laminated to a thickness of 0.5 cm and a diameter of 5.0 cm. For technological characterization, the parameters of loss of mass, thickness, diameter, specific and apparent volume and expansion factor were evaluated on the day of manufacture. After 24 hours, the water activity (aw), texture and moisture were measured. After evaluating the results obtained through analysis of variance, 3 formulations were selected (0,5; 0,6 e 0,4 of fat replacement for HCS) to be evaluated over time for aw, moisture and texture. It was observed a slight tendency to increase aw and cookie break strength, over time. The HCS additions on the level until 60% of fat replacement on the cookies formulation showed to be favorable, once the traditional technological characteristics associated to this product were maintained, besides this product presentes to be more attractive to the consumer, due to the reduced caloric content.