Enhancing bread functionality through partial wheat flour replacement with chickpea starch: impacts on dough characteristics, bread quality, and digestive responses

This study investigates the effects of substituting 5–15% wheat flour with chickpea starch (CS) in bread formulations, focusing on its impact on the physicochemical properties of the flour matrix, dough rheology, quality attributes, and glycemic index (GI) of the bread. CS incorporation improved the hydration capacity of the flour blend, promoted starch granule swelling and gelatinization through enhanced water availability, and improved dough viscoelasticity. FTIR analysis revealed that CS substitution induced a shift in protein secondary structure from disordered conformations (β-turn and random coil) to more ordered structures (β-sheet and α-helix), indicating enhanced structural stability of the dough protein matrix. However, higher CS substitution levels weakened the gluten matrix, resulting in increased bread firmness and decreased specific volume, baking loss, resilience, and springiness (p