Staling in Starch Breads: The Effect of Antistaling α-Amylase

Abstract A novel starch bread that contained no gluten was found to firm at a rate comparable to a normal standard bread made from wheat flour. Treatment of both the starch and the standard bread with Novamyl, an antistaling enzyme mix, inhibited firming. 13 C CP/MAS NMR studies showed that the decreased firming of the Novamyl‐treated starch bread was correlated with decreased starch retrogradation. For the Novamyl‐treated bread the increase in retrograded starch over six days following baking was about 11% compared to an increase of over 200% for the untreated bread. These results suggests that starch retrogradation is sufficient to cause bread firming.