Utilization of Quinoa flour in cookie production

Quinoa -one of three pseudocereals- are an exceptionally nutritious food source, owing to their high level of protein, omega-3 and 6 fatty acid, fiber, vitamin, mineral and micro constituents, phytosteroids, carbohydrates of low glycemic index. In this study, the use of quinoa flour (QF) instead of wheat flour (WF) in cookies was investigated. QF was used in cookie formulation at different levels (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%). Afterwards, in order to determine the effects of QF on physical, chemical, nutritional and sensory properties of cookies were analyzed. The use of QF led to a slight increase in the product thickness values of the cookie samples. Also, diameter values decreased as levels of QF increased in cookie formulation but significant decrease was not noted with 10% QF addition. Moreover, addition of QF to the formulations containing decreased the spread ratio of the samples. Also, QF affected the colour (L*, a* and b*) of cookie. The cookie samples containing 50% QF had the highest a* and b* values, while cookie samples containing 0% QF had the highest L* values. The highest ratios of QF adversely affected hardness values of the cookie samples. The use of QF increased ash, crude protein, crude fat, total phenolic content (TPC) content of cookie samples (p<0.05). As expected a substantial increase in the levels of phytic acid was found in all cookie samples containing QF. Generally potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) contents of the cookies increased with increasing levels of QF. Moreover, QF affected the scores of sensory properties of cookie samples. QF addition had statistically significant effect at p