Applied sciences  
Eductorial Special Issue \"Cereal-Based Foods\"  
[PERSON] \({}^{\star}\)\({}^{\copyright}\) and [PERSON] \({}^{\copyright}\)  
Department of Process Analytics and Cereal Science, Institute of Food Science and Biotechnology, University of Hohenheim, Garberst. 23, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
\({}^{\star}\) Correspondence: [EMAIL_ADDRESS]; Tel. : +49-711-459-24460  
Published manuscripts about cereals have been increasing in numbers over the last 20 years by an average of 160 manuscripts per year. However, during the last three years, this number has increased to more than 450 manuscripts per year (Scopus database). This demonstrates cereals' status as one of the most important groups of staple foods for human nutrition. However, the processing of the raw material, the improvement in the nutritional value of the final product, as well as consumer acceptance are still of the utmost importance. Furthermore, one major aspect in the future will be the influence of the climate change on the raw material. How this will influence the daily diet of humans is hard to predict, but it must be discussed soon. This Special Issue of _Applied Sciences_ entitled \"Cereal-Based Foods\" presents novel examples of the preparation of bread and noodles. The accepted manuscripts cover a wide range of important topics in different area, such as the influence of drought on the production of bread, the optimization of the fermentation process of dough, the improvement in nutrition and the antioxidant activity of bread, as well as the improvement in the quality and fat content of fried instant noodles. The implementation of the response surface methodology is presented for two different applications. The accepted manuscripts comprise six original research papers, which are summarized below. The influence of drought stress due to climate change is becoming more and more importance for food quality. [PERSON] et al. [1] investigated the very important question of how drought stress during antihess will influence the grain protein composition and bread in Iranian and German wheat genotypes grown in the field. They showed that drought stress did not significantly change total grain protein concentration in any of the wheat genotypes. However, an increase in \(\omega\)-gliadins with increasing drought stress could be observed. In the German genotypes, higher levels of HMW and a reduction in LMW-C glutenins were found. It is noteworthy that the drought-induced compositional change correlated positively with the specific bread volume obtained. The authors suggest paying attention to the protein composition may help to develop more efficient wheat varieties with an optimal baking quality when there is a lack of water. However, the results also highlight the necessity of evaluating the drought tolerance of wheat genotypes under their respective environmental conditions in the field. [PERSON] et al. [2] determine the optimal conditions to produce a mature ferment by investigating the ferment storage, fermentation time, and fermentation temperature on the quality of the ferment, as well as the obtained bread. The ferment was assessed for total titratable acidity (TTA), pH, and viscosity; the corresponding breads were evaluated for processing parameters, dough properties, and bread quality. The optimal ferment conditions were found to be a fermentation temperature of 35 \({}^{\circ}\)C combined with a fermentation time of 240 min and a fermentation storage time of 24 h at 4 \({}^{\circ}\)C to stabilize acid production. The viscosity of the ferment was in a range good for pumping. For process supervision, the authors mention that measurement of TTA would be an effective way to monitor ferment quality. To explore the effect of the primary processing conditions on the quality of sweet bread made from ready-to-proof and ready-to-bake dough, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [3] carried out response surface optimization experiments.