Fractionation and reconstitution experiments provide insight into the role of wheat starch in frozen dough.

The wheat dough was subjected to freezing/thawing treatment for 0, 3, 7, and 10 cycles and fractionated into non-gluten proteins and starch. High-performance liquid chromatography revealed changes in molecular mass distribution occurred for the extracted non-gluten proteins. As for the residual starch, it reflected a loss of chemical components such as amylose, proteins and lipids induced by freezing treatment. X-ray diffraction revealed increased crystallinity in separated starch as the freezing cycle was repeated. Rapid visco-analyser exhibited different pasting behaviors on starch pellets, especially on the breakdown and setback viscosities. In the reconstituted dough, an increase was observed in storage and loss modulus, corresponding to the presence of freezing/thawing-treated starches, which was changed as a result of higher water absorption. These results extended the knowledge of starch granules in dough deterioration upon freezing process and might contribute to the better understanding of frozen dough quality loss.