Toward a comprehensive understanding of various milling methods on the physicochemical properties of highland barley flours and eating quality of corresponding sugar-free cookies

Highland barley (HB) was subjected to dry-, semidry-, wet-milling methods and assessed for flour physicochemical properties and eating quality of corresponding sugar-free cookies. Results showed that there were significant differences between different milled flours in damaged starch content, particle size, hydration, pasting properties, and color. High a* values and poor hydration/pasting properties of wet-milled flours were associated with its smallest particle size and lowest content of damaged starch (25.3%), β-glucan (1.87%), and dietary fiber (10.87%), resulting in dark brown color, slightly high spread ratio, low hardness, and fast digestibility of the corresponding cookies. Conversely, the low digestibility of the cookies (predicted glycemic index 58.85) prepared from dry-milled flours was attributed to the higher content of dietary fiber, β-glucan and V-type starch-lipid complex, which would affect enzyme accessibility and may be beneficial for making HB sugar-free cookies. This study is expected to promote the development of HB functional foods.