Role of inulin in dough and bread during freezing storage

Effects of inulin on yeast in frozen dough and bread prepared from the frozen dough were examined in this study. The number of hydrogen bonds increased accordingly and both short-chain and long-chain inulin in the dough could combine with more water and reduce water migration. And both these inulin types improved the survival rate and fermentability of yeast. Inulin addition to dough frozen for 4 weeks increased yeast survival by 32-36.6% compared with doughs lacking inulin. The fermentation ability in doughs stored with short-chain inulin was greater than those stored with long-chain inulin although these compounds significantly increased the specific volume, improved the slice structure and reduced bread hardness. The quality improvement using short-chain inulin was significantly better than that of long-chain inulin. Therefore, our results demonstrated that the addition of inulin could effectively reduce the damage to yeast cells and improve the quality of frozen dough and bread.