Consumer test
The cookies made from wheat flour were selected as the control
cookies for the consumer test, the cookies made from buckwheat as
an example of flour with a high protein content, and the cookies
made from FSR and FPM (rice and maize flours), as examples which
produced cookies with similar instrumental characteristics to the
control cookie. The results of the cookie sensory evaluation are
shown in Table 3. Consumers rated cookies prepared from FPM
with the highest quality. These cookies had the best sensorial scores
for appearance, taste and overall acceptability, although there were
no significant differences in the last parameter between FPM
cookies and the cookies made from wheat. The scores obtained
would appear to indicate that consumers found the slightly more
yellowish colour (Fig. 1) of those cookies appealing. Cookies made
from FSR did not show significant differences with the control
cookies in appearance, taste and overall acceptability, but they
achieved a slightly lower score in odour and texture. Conversely,
cookies made from buckwheat had the lowest sensorial scores except for the odour parameter, which can be strongly influenced
by their particular herbaceous taste and greater hardness. Similarly,
Baljeet, Ritika, and Roshan (2010) observed that an increase in the
level of buckwheat flour in wheat-flour based cookies produced a
fall in sensory scores. Cookies made from wheat alone achieved
higher scores than the other cookies in texture because consumers
perceived them to be less hard and more brittle, which agreed with
the cookie elastic moduli and peak force.