4.2.2. Preparation of Wheat Crackers Test Materials

Wheat crackers were prepared at the laboratory scale according to the following optimized recipe: 500 g of common wheat flour, 40 g sunflower seed, 200 mL of water, 10 g of salt. Ingredients were mixed up in a kneading machine (Princess 151 936 Silver, Milan, Italy) for 20 min. The dough was rolled out with a traditional pasta machine (model 150 Atlas Marcato SpA, Italy) into sheets of 2 mm, cut, and baked in a conventional oven at 230 ◦C for 10 min. Mycotoxin-contaminated wheat crackers were prepared by adding the appropriate amount of mycotoxin standard solutions to the water necessary for dough preparation. After baking, each material (blank or contaminated) was passed through an ultra-centrifugal mill (ZM 200, Retsch, 500 μm sieve), then homogenized by a laboratory mixer for 24 h.
