## 7 Applications of Pigmented Rice in Bread, Bakery Products, and Snacks
### Cake and Pastries  
Cake (wheat-based) substituted with black pigmented rice, whether waxy or non-waxy, exhibited higher phenolic content and antioxidant activities. However, the substitution resulted in lower batter viscosity and a reduced ability to trap air during baking. Consequently, the cakes had higher firmness, chewiness, and gumminess, along with lower volume, moisture, springiness, and resilience [89; 90; 91]. These outcomes can be attributed to the reduced gluten content in the batter, which limits the formation of an air-trapping structure and facilitates water migration from the crumb to the crust during baking. Additionally, complexes such as amylose-lipid and protein-starch-phenolic compounds, which could have formed during the process, contributed to reduced water absorption and lower batter viscosity. GF cakes, on the other hand, benefited technologically from the use of extruded pigmented rice as the process increased batter viscosity, improving the porosity, while lowering bulk content and moisture. However, phytochemical properties decreased with an increase in extrusion temperature [87]. Germination did not improve physical quality of GF cakes, as use of germinated red rice flour still resulted in firmer crumb texture, while lack of gluten resulted in fast migration of moisture from crumb to crust [88]. However, when added to GF brownies, they showed higher volume and reduced firmness compared to those made with non-germinated pigmented rice flours. In this case, the use of germinated red rice with higher amylose content enhanced the ability of rice starch granules to bind with water molecules, promoting structure formation that expands effectively under the influence of water vapor during oven baking. Nevertheless, sensory acceptability of GF brownies made from germinated red rice showed no significant difference compared to those made from non-germinated red rice [92]. Interestingly, use of protein-linking enzymes like transglutaminase in GF cakes was only effective on brown rice as it contains less phenolic compounds. Phenolic compounds act as reducing agent on disulfide crosslinks produced by transglutaminase, leading to breakdown of dough after mixing, reduced dough stability, and reduced cake volume [86]. Despite these effects on physical product properties, the nutritional quality was improved in biscuits, cookies, and crackers substituted with pigmented rice addition. They showed higher amount of total phenolic content, antioxidant activities, protein, lipids, ash, and crude fibre [93; 94; 95]. Biscuits substituted with purple rice exhibited higher protein digestibility, lower starch digestibility, and lower predicted glycaemic index. Substitution of at least 25% pigmented rice in these bakery products was considered acceptable by the consumers and even close to the control samples. Overall, the use of pigmented rice in these bakery products is less challenging compared to its use in bread, as volume is not as critical for their quality. Incorporating pigmented rice (at least 25% \(w/w\)) can produce acceptable and nutritious biscuits, cookies, and crackers.