Abstract: No or very low amylose is one of the major quality attributes in waxy wheat that distinguishes it from common wheat and greatly affects the food-making quality. In the present study, the flour of ‘Jinuo 1’ waxy wheat, was blended with the flour of common wheat cultivars, ‘Jimai 20’ and ‘Jimai 22’, in four different proportions to investigate the effect of waxy flour on quality characteristics of common wheat flour as well as on improving its noodle-making quality. The results showed that the setback value of starch from ‘Jinuo 1’ wheat flour was 449 cP, which was significantly lower than that of ‘Jimai 20’ and ‘Jimai 22’ wheat flour, grain hardness was 64.89, grain protein content was 16.14% on a dry basis, gluten index was 66.08%, and dough stability time was 2.0 min. Meanwhile, the color of fresh dough sheet varied little with ΔE* values of 3.83 and 5.29 at 2 and 24 h, respectively. For the flour blends from ‘Jinuo 1’ and ‘Jimai 20’ cultivars, with increasing ratio of waxy flour to common wheat flour, the setback value of starch and gluten index decreased, water absorption increased, dough stability time shorten, the ΔE* value of dough sheet at 2 and 24 h decreased gradually, and both palatability and smoothness were improved. For the flour blends from ‘Jinuo 1’ and ‘Jimai 22’ cultivars, the quality traits including flour protein content, gluten index and water absorption increased, the setback value of starch decreased, the ΔE* value of dough sheet at 2 and 4 h decreased gradually, and the noodle-making quality as well as the noodle taste quality including palatability and smoothness improved with increasing percentage of waxy flour. In conclusion, the addition of waxy wheat flour to common wheat flour could result in improved flour quality and starch characteristics and in turn improved noodle quality. The optimum amount of added waxy wheat flour was 20%–40%.

Key words: waxy wheat, wheat flour blend, quality, noodle