Improving the physicochemical properties of a traditional portuguese cake – “económicos” with chestnut flour

“Económicos” are traditional Portuguese pastry products; although their production is low-cost, their nutritional value is equally low. Since it is a widely consumed product in the Trás-os-Montes region, it is important to add value to it without making significant changes to the traditional recipe. Thus, this work has the main objective to increase the nutritional power of “económicos” through the incorporation of chestnut (Castanea sativa) fruit flour. The influence of the incorporation of 9% of chestnut flour as a new ingredient was analysed in terms of physical parameters (texture, colour, pH, water activity and moisture), nutritional content (according to the official AOAC methodology) and chemical parameters (sugars, fatty acids and organic acids) and the ability to control the microbial load over shelf life (32 days). Overall, the addition of the chestnut flour did not drastically change the appearance of the chemical and physical profiles of the cakes, but resulted in a lighter crumb (L*), slight changes in the texture profile, reduction of fat, and most importantly, introduced healthier flour to this inexpensive cake. Moreover, it did not stimu- late the growth of microorganisms (total aerobic mesophiles, coliforms, Bacillus cereus, molds, and yeasts) during the 32 days of storage.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through the national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). This work was funded by the FEDER-Interreg España-Portugal pro- gramme through the project TRANSCoLAB 0612_TRANS_CO_LAB_2_P and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Regional Operational Program North 2020, within the scope of Project GreenHealth - Digital strategies in biological assets to improve well-being and promote green health, Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000042, to which J. Ueda is thankful for his grant. S. Heleno and M. Carocho thank the FCT for their individual employment program–con- tracts (CEECIND/00831/2018 and CEECIND/03040/2017), while L. Barros is thankful for her institutional scientific contract. F. Fernandes and M. Pedrosa thank the FCT for their PhD grants (SFRH/BD/145467/2019 and SFRH/BD/2021.04531, respectively).