Teng were expensive medicinal mushrooms. The cultivation of mushrooms requires a long time to produce fruiting bodies whereas the submerged culture only requires a short time to mass-produce mycelia. Accordingly, mushroom mycelia become an alternative or substitute of mushroom products. However, mycelia are not used directly as food but could be used as food-flavouring materials and food ingredients. Therefore, the incorporation of mycelium into the formulation of different conventional foods to provide beneficial effects is of great interest.
Bread is a staple food, consumed all over the world, and is mainly made of wheat flour, water, salt and yeast. Many food ingredients, such as buckwheat yamand wheat bran , other than those mentioned above, have been included in bread formulation to increase its variety, nutritional value and product appeal. Besides, mushroom fruiting bodies, including shiitake stipe and silver ear, have been incorporated into bread .
According to the requirement in Chinese National Standards, the substitution percentage for claimed specific bread is 5% Accordingly, the objective of this research was to substitute 5% of wheat flour with mushroom mycelia of A. blazei, H. erinaceus, A. camphorata or P. linteus to make bread and to evaluate the influence of mycelia on bread quality, including specific volume, colour property, equivalent umami concentration (EUC), texture profile analysis (TPA) and sensory evaluation. The functional components, including lovastatin, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and ergothioneine, in mushroom mycelium-supplemented bread, were also analysed.