Special bakery products - Acrylamide formation and bread quality are influenced by potato addition

Especially high levels of asparagine, like those present in potatoes, combined with reducing sugars, lead to increased acrylamide formation. As the influence of potato addition on acrylamide and baking quality in breads has not been examined yet, we aimed to investigate this area and prepared breads with potato flakes (7.5–22.5 g/100 g flour) at different moisture levels as a common mitigation approach (56.5–79.1 g/100 g flour). Analyses included reducing sugars (HPAEC–PAD), asparagine (HPLC) in dough, acrylamide (HPLC-MS/MS) in crumbs and crusts and baking quality measures (dimensions, baking yield, specific volume, lightness, browning index, firmness, crumb and crust moisture, crust-to-crumb ratio, crust thickness, pore analysis). High acrylamide concentrations were measured in crusts, reaching 292.3 ± 16.2 μg/kg, or 91.8 ± 5.3 μg/kg in bread. Significant (p < 0.001) linear correlations were identified between crust acrylamide and asparagine (r = 0.97), glucose (r = 0.85) and maltose (r = 0.92) in doughs, and also potato flakes addition (r = 0.95), surface browning index (r = 0.90) and bread lightness (r = −0.97). Summarizing, potato flakes addition led to higher precursor levels, while water addition influenced the reaction kinetics. Both parameters affected the quality of the bread significantly.