Miller Magazine Issue: 124 April 2020

62 COVER STORY MILLER / APRIL 2020 two categories: product appearance and functional- ity. Appearance factors: Syrian flatbread should be a round, uniform shape, the layers are of even thickness, a clean separation should be achieved between top and bottom layers, about 4 mm thickness, crust color golden brown and crumb color creamy-white, and a smooth crust free from blisters and cracks (Miskelly, 2016; Quail, 2016; Popper and Hamed, 2020). Syrian flatbread functionality attributes are ability to be rolled and folded without cracking or breaking. These attributes are tested by rolling the bread around a cylinder or folded. Syrian flatbread softness or tear- ing resistance and staling are very important assess- ment characteristics. During staling the product flex- ibility which is an important quality feature is loosed. STANDARDIZING FLATBREAD FLOURS Köten (2017), reviewed Syrian flatbread production in Turkey and stated that the quality of produced Syri- an flatbreads have some problems and explained the production problems and its preventing methods. The aims of using flour additive in flatbread industry is to optimize flour dough machinability and preventing bread staling. During bread staling bread firmness and fragility increase because of drying and starch retro- gradation (Quail, 2016). Due to the differences in bak- ing Syrian flatbread as compared with other bread like pan bread it is wrong to recommend the same types of bread improvers for both of them (Aleid, 2015). The following are the most used additives to achieve optimum flatbread: Emulsifiers It is common to use addition of emulsifiers to extend the shelf life of pan or hearth bread. The emulsifier interacts with the starch to slow the rate of the ret- rogradation. Improvements in dough properties, wa- ter absorption, and bread shelf life can be achieved with the addition of mono- and diglyceride and leci- thin. Monoglycerides are the primary anti-staling ad- ditives (Aleid, 2015). Using 0.2% mono-diglyceride is recommended. A higher quality bread can be pro- duced by using low concentration (0.25 %) of sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate (SSL) compared to glycerol mo- no-stearate and di-acetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- glycerides (DATEM). Using maltodextrin is effective at reducing the staling of flatbread (Quail, 2016). Gums Addition of guar gum, Arabic gum is effective at re- ducing the staling of flatbread. The addition of car- boxymethyl cellulose (CMC) at 0.5% increased the shelf life of flatbread (Aleid, 2015; Quail, 2016). Hydrocolloids gums such as methylcellulose, car- boxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and hydroxyl-propylmeth- yl cellulose (HPMC) are excellent water binders and able to slow up the drying of bread surface and thus retard its staling process during storage (Aleid, 2015).