Replacing wheat flour with green pea waste flour in pound cake
What it found
Swapping up to 20% of the wheat flour in pound cake with green pea waste flour produced cakes that tasters liked almost as much as regular ones.
Higher amounts made the cakes denser, harder and greener.
What they found
Studies in people
Taste and appearance ratings
Cakes where 10% or 20% of the wheat flour was swapped out scored about the same as regular cakes for taste, smell and texture. When more than 30% was replaced, tasters gave the lowest scores across the board.
Other findings
Cake size and firmness
Adding more pea flour shrank the cakes and made them heavier. A cake with 30% pea flour measured 95 cm3 compared to 118 cm3 for the regular cake, and it was noticeably firmer to bite.
Batter thickness
Batters containing pea flour were thicker and stretchier than plain wheat batter. The authors link this to the higher protein and fiber in the pea flour holding onto water.
Color changes
More pea flour made both the crust and the inside less bright and less yellow. The inside turned visibly green because of natural color in the peas.
Nutrient differences in flours
The pea waste flour contained 21.9% protein and 14.6% fiber, while the wheat flour had 9.85% protein and 0.58% fiber. The pea flour also had less moisture and fewer carbohydrates.
What the authors conclude
- They conclude that high quality cakes can be made when up to 20% of the wheat flour is replaced with green pea waste flour.
- Their results show these cakes have taste, texture and looks close to cakes made with only wheat flour.
- They suggest this method could help reduce the large amount of food waste created during pea processing.
How it was done
About 30% of all food made for people is lost or wasted each year, which totals 1300 million tons. The authors wanted to find a use for green pea waste left over from frozen pea packing by using it to replace some of the wheat flour in cakes.
The researchers dried leftover green peas at 65°C and ground them into flour. They baked six batches of pound cake, replacing 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of the wheat flour with this pea flour. Twenty students tasted the cakes and rated them.
What it can’t tell you
- This work tested how pea flour changes baking qualities like texture and color, not health effects in people who eat it.
- The tasting panel was made up of 20 university students, so their preferences might not match those of everyday shoppers.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- Cairo University, Egypt
The paper
- Title
- Green pea waste flour as a wheat flour partial replacer in pound cake: Batter rheology behavior and cake quality properties
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Cite
- Sallam YI, El-Salam EAEA, Abaza AG (2021). Green pea waste flour as a wheat flour partial replacer in pound cake: Batter rheology behavior and cake quality properties. Acta scientiarum polonorum. Technologia alimentaria. doi:10.17306/J.AFS.0838Free full textPubMed 33449521DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error