Utilizing Defatted Hulless Pumpkin Seed Meal for Bread Fortification: A Valorization Approach to Improve Techno-functional and Textural properties

This study assessed the impact of substitution of hulless defatted pumpkin seed powder (HDPSP) on dough and bread properties. Doughs and bread with 0–10% HDPSP were prepared in order to evaluate their physicochemical and sensory characteristics. Farinograph analysis evaluated flour’s mixing capabilities of different HDPSP substituted doughs, while bread quality was assessed for physical and bioactive properties. HDPSP substituted breads showed enhanced antioxidant capacity (2.00 to 8.94% RSA), total phenols (100.67 to 121.21 mg GAE/100 g) and total flavonoid content (19.98 to 28.02 mg QE/100 g). A significant (p ≤ 0.05) lighter bread crust and darker crumb (lower L*) with increased redness level (a*) in crust was observed with a decline in crumb on increasing the levels of HDPSP in breads. The breads with 5% HDPSP substitution was chosen as best with overall acceptability score of 8.45 followed by control bread (8.37). However, the hardness increased from 7.83 N to 8.55 N with 5% substitution of HDPSP in bread while the gumminess was observed as 79.94 N and 157.33 N in control and 5% HDPSP substituted bread. The gumminess and hardness could have counterbalanced each, exhibiting better consumer texture perception. All the data were subjected to a multivariate analysis (PCA) for understanding relationships between different variables. The first principal component (PC1), accounts for 87.1% of the variance indicating effective separation of samples based on their overall performance and quality while second principal component (PC2) offered little additional separation with variance of 10.4%.