Effects of Glucose Oxidase and Sodium Stearoyl Lactate as a Compound Modifier on Improving the Quality of Wheat Dough and Its Steamed Bread

Modifiers are widely used in flour products; however, a certain modifier often exhibits limited efficacy or requires a high addition amount to achieve the desired improvement. The use of compound modifier (CM) is an alternative strategy to address this problem. In this paper, the effects of glucose oxidase (GOD) and sodium stearoyl lactate (SSL) as a CM on the properties of the dough, as well as the quality of the steamed bread were investigated. The results revealed that CM significantly ameliorated the specific volume (by 9.62%, <i>p</i> ≤ 0.05) and texture (by 35.70% for hardness, <i>p</i> ≤ 0.05) of the steamed bread, compared with the control group. The CM dough exhibited an increased bound water content (by 21.46%, <i>p</i> ≤ 0.05) and improved rheological properties relative to the control. Moreover, CM improves the gluten network in dough by increasing the number of disulfide bonds and strengthening the secondary structure of gluten proteins. These improvements are further supported by microstructural observations of dough and steamed bread using SEM. Both the results of LF-NMR and sulfhydryl group determination demonstrated a combined improvement effect that occurred between SSL and GOD, which improved the quality of the dough and steamed bread. The results suggest that this CM is very potential in the production of high-quality flour products.