Technological Performance and Bread Quality Descriptors of Bread Formulated with Ancient ‘Forgotten’ Wheat Varieties

Aligned with European vision of valorizing ‘forgotten’ local food, this paper extends the limited information about the bread-making performances of four 'forgotten' ancient soft wheat varieties with the aim of supporting innovative, healthier and more sustainable food ecosystems. The ancient varieties Bianchetta, Frassineto, and Risciola exhibited lower dough stability and a higher degree of softening while Bolero and Autonomia B showed higher stability and a lower degree of softening. This affected the dough development during leaving and baking with the tallest samples formulated with Bolero wheat flour, and the shorter and larger bread samples formulated with Bianchetta, Frassineto and Risciola. The microstructure of samples also was affected by the wheat varieties, with Bolero that limited the porosity fraction (54.9% to 38.1%) and developed the smaller pores (i.e. Gaussian peak value of 150 µm) with high dimensional homogeneity (120 - 200 μm). Contrary, the ancient varieties developed more porous bread samples, especially Bianchetta wheat flour with the largest and the most inhomogeneous pores, with size distribution in the range of 240 μm - 540 μm. The microstructure also affected the texture properties with Bolero and Autonomia B which showed significantly higher values for the Hardness and Chewiness, while bread prepared with Frassineto and Bianchetta were the softest. As expected, during 48 h of storage, the staling affected the overall quality parameters of bread samples, with significant differences between Bolero and the ancient varieties. The increased knowledge should stimulate research and innovation aimed at valorizing local ancient wheat varieties to develop breads or other cereal-based products with enhanced nutritional, sensory, and technological properties, thereby supporting the local economy and a sustainable food system.