Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of farinaceous cereal or cereal material
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-30
2002-03-12
Wong, Leslie (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of farinaceous cereal or cereal material
C426S018000, C426S052000, C426S549000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06355282
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a dough composition, i.e., a mixture to be baked, particularly an improved dough composition for bread. More particularly, it relates to incorporation of an effective amount of an enzyme having raw starch decomposing activity in dough as a substitute of a conventional emulsifying agent. A baked product prepared therefrom has improved softness and is slow in getting hard.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In preparing bread, various oxidizing agents, reducing agents, enzymes, emulsifying agents, and the like have been used as bread improvers.
Conventional oxidizing agents as dough conditioners include potassium bromate, potassium iodate, ammonium persulfate, and L-ascorbic acid. Conventional reducing agents include cystine. Further, enzymes (e.g., glucose oxidase, catalase, &agr;-amylase, and hemicellulase), emulsifying agents (e.g., DATA-DATEM, CSL, SSL, and lecithin) have also been used in combination as a bread improver.
The phenomenon of bread's hardening with time has not been elucidated completely, but it is considered that bread usually increases hardness with aging of starch or as the molecules of starch associate to form a crystalline region. Hardening of bread is a big economical problem to bread manufacturers and consumers. That is, hardening of bread limits not only the shelf life of bread in retail stores but also the period consumers can keep in store. Various emulsifying agents known to be effective in extending the storage life of bread have been used.
However, the increase of consumers' resistance to the use of chemical additives in foods has accelerated the necessity to reduce or avoid addition of emulsifying agents. Therefore, use of the above-mentioned enzymes as a promising substitute for emulsifying agents has been given studies. Various types of enzymes that have been applied to bread manufacture are used for the improvement of processing and product characteristics in bread manufacture, and some of them have been used for suppression of hardening.
However, the conventional enzymatic dough conditioners are insufficient as a perfect substitute for an emulsifying agent and unsatisfactory with respect to workability and oven spring of dough. It has therefore been keenly demanded to develop a dough conditioner which is naturally occurring and capable of suppressing hardening of baked food.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In order to overcome the above problems, the inventors of the present invention have conducted extensive investigations into a variety of enzymes. As a result, they have found that addition of an effective amount of an enzyme preparation having raw starch decomposing activity to flour not only brings about marked improvement in processing characteristics in bread making but is highly effective in keeping softness of baked products, and thus completed a method for producing baked products using the enzyme.
Thus, the present invention provides a dough composition comprising not less than 15 units of a raw starch decomposing enzyme per kilogram of a raw material to be baked, which may further contain glucose oxidase and/or hemicellulase, a process for production thereof, and a baked food obtained therefrom.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The term “raw material to be baked” as used herein means a material containing starch such as plain flour (a powder of wheat, hereinafter simply referred to as flour), powder of other cereal crops such as rye, and mixtures thereof. The term “dough” as used herein means a composition which comprises the raw material to be baked and a liquid for kneading (e.g., water, a dairy component, an egg component, etc.). The dough may also contain sugars, sodium chloride, shortening, yeast, etc. The dough is preferably a mixture ready to be steamed, baked or fried which is prepared by kneading a mix comprising a raw material to be baked such as flour, etc. as an essential material and other materials, such as fats and oils, saccharides (sugar etc.), dairy products (milk etc.), eggs, yeast, etc. and, if desired, various additives such as enzymes and emulsifying agents, together with liquid such as water, milk, and egg. The dough includes not only general one for making bread, either leavened or unleavened, but one for making doughnuts, pies, pizzas, pancakes, sponge cakes, crepes, rice cake, bun, etc. Therefore, the term “dough” is intended to include not only “dough” in its narrow sense of the word but pastry and batter. The term “bake” or “baking” as used herein means steaming, baking, frying, etc. in addition to usual baking.
The present invention relates to dough prepared by adding an enzyme having raw starch decomposing activity to a starch, such as flour, as a raw material to be baked in an amount of not less than 15 units per kilogram of the raw material. The starch content of the raw material to be baked such a flour is generally about 70%. The present invention further relates to a method for preparing a baked food characterized by a combined use of the enzyme having raw starch decomposing activity and various oligosaccharide producing enzymes, such as &agr;-amylase, &bgr;-amylase, glucoamylase, cyclodextrin glucanotransferase, hemicellulase, xylanase, pentosanase, &bgr;-glucanase, cellulose, mannase, arabinofuranosidase, debranching enzymes, maltotriose producing enzymes, maltotetraose producing enzymes, maltopentaose producing enzymes, and maltohexaose producing enzymes, glucose oxidase, catalase, sulfhydryl oxidase, lipoxygenase, peroxidase, protease, peptidase, glutaminase, transglutaminase, lipase, phosphatase, etc. A combined use with glucose oxidase and/or hemicellulase is particularly preferred.
The baked products made from the dough of the present invention keep softness for an extended period of time. Where other enzymes are used in combination, the dough exhibits improved elasticity and assumes a tacky-dry state on its surface which greatly contributes to workability. The bread or the like prepared from the dough of the present invention also exhibits satisfactory properties.
With respect to starch in the raw state, general amylase species can hardly decompose the long-chain &agr;-1→4 glucan. The terminology “enzyme having raw starch decomposing activity” or “raw starch decomposing enzyme” as used herein is intended to mean an amylase which can act on raw starch, i.e., starch before gelatinization. Known amylases of this type include those produced by microorganisms belong to genera Aspergillus, Bacillus, Rhizopus, and Zoogloea. More specifically, Gluczyme AF6 (a glucoamylase preparation of
Rhizopus niveus
origin, available from Amano Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.), Glucoamylase Amano (a glucoamylase preparation of
Aspergillus niger
origin, available from Amano Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.), and a raw starch decomposing enzyme of
Zoogloea ramigera
KO-159 origin (see Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application 4-141082) can be mentioned as examples.
The raw starch decomposing enzyme according to the present invention is not particularly limited as long as it shows raw starch decomposing activity. The ratio of the raw starch decomposing activity per the soluble starch decomposing activing (%) as measured in the methods described below is preferably 0.1% or more, more preferably 1% or more, and most preferably 3% or more.
The raw starch decomposing enzyme introduced into dough hydrolyses raw starch constituting the raw material, such as flour. Since amylases that have been used as a bread improver hardly act on un-gelatinized starch, they are ineffective in dough in which starch is in a raw state. To the contrary, the enzyme having raw starch decomposing activity as used in the present invention acts on the raw starch from the stage of dough preparation to produce glucose, etc. thereby to accelerate fermentation by yeast.
The raw starch decomposing activity is determined as follows.
Measurement of Raw Starch Decomposing Activity
In a 100 ml-volume Erlenmeyer flask is put 10 ml of a 50 mg/ml suspension of fluor in a 0.05M acetate buffer (pH 5.0), an
Mori Shigeharu
Sato Kimihiko
Tanaka Noriaki
Amano Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
Sughrue & Mion, PLLC
Wong Leslie
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