Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Carbohydrate containing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-23
2002-09-24
Bhat, Nina (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Carbohydrate containing
C426S072000, C426S073000, C426S074000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06455096
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hard candy with a relatively-high moisture and hardness, and more particularly to a hard candy enriched with trehalose and having a relatively-high moisture and hardness, and to a process of the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Kokoku Nos. 34,788/82 and 50,698/83, hard candies are generally prepared by condensing aqueous saccharide solutions under heating conditions into those with a moisture content of two w/w % or lower (the wording “w/w %” is abbreviated as “%”, unless specified otherwise), and in an usual manner cooling and shaping the concentrate. The aqueous saccharide solutions need a relatively-large amount of energy to be concentrated into such concentrates with a relatively-low moisture. The solutions have a relatively-high viscosity and need a relatively-high level handling. Thus, if the saccharide solutions should not necessarily be condensed to such a low-level of moisture, the energy consumption can be lowered, and the process of hard candies can be easily and simply improved.
However, it is generally said that when incompletely condensed as to show a relatively-high moisture content, particularly to a high-moisture content of over about 3.5%, hard candies may cause the following unfavorable problems: The hard candies become less hardened and become impossible of cooling and shaping, absorb moisture, change on shape, crystallize to show opaque, and cause adhesion and stickiness to the teeth.
Recently, trehalose or &agr;,&agr;-trehalose, a disaccharide as a food material, has become widely used. Trehalose has characteristic features of non-reducibility, satisfactory pH- and thermal-stabilities, mild and high-quality sweetness, relatively-low cariogenicity as a sweetener, and the use of an energy-source for living bodies. Therefore, it has been expected for establishing hard candies using such a useful trehalose characterized by the above satisfactory features. However, it has been known that trehalose has a serious demerit of easy crystallization when processed into hard candies. For example, Japanese Patent Kokai No. 256,694/96 discloses in the paragraph [0013] as follow: The percentage of trehalose in the material saccharides is preferably in the range of 0.5-60% by weight; it is not preferable at below the lower limit of 0.5% because the present effect will not be expected, and it is not preferable at over the upper limit of 60% because trehalose may crystallize during the processing of hard candies. In Example 1 of the above Japanese Patent Kokai, hard candies are produced by adjusting the trehalose content to 10% to the total material saccharides and using sugar and starch-based syrups as the resting 90% of starch hydrolysates. Japanese Patent Kokai No. 238,642/97 discloses in the paragraph [0015] as follow: It was found that the sole use of trehalose as a material for confectioneries such as candies is impossible due to the property of trehalose in terms of its way of crystallization. Example 1 of the Japanese Patent Kokai discloses a candy, prepared by providing 700 g maltitol with a purity of 95% and 300 g trehalose with a purity of 99.8%, adding water to the saccharides into a 70% composition for confectioneries, condensing the composition until heated to 180° C., and pouring the concentrate into a depositor to make a hard candy.
It was found that such a hard candy has the following defects: It is too low the proportion of trehalose to sufficiently exert the characteristic features of trehalose, and more particularly a hard candy, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Kokai No. 238,642/97, prepared by condensing an aqueous trehalose solution up to a high temperature of 180° C., is poor in the preservation stability under the above conditions and susceptible to crystallization of trehalose and to lack of transparency. Examples of candies, processed with a large amount of trehalose, are those disclosed in Examples B-10 and B-11 in Japanese Patent Kokai No. 336,363/96. These candies are, however, not hard ones but soft ones with a relatively-low hardness, fine trehalose crystals, and poor transparency.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a novel hard candy which has a relatively-high moisture and hardness, as well as a satisfactory stability, and which does not need to be concentrated up to give a relatively-low moisture content; and more particularly relates to a hard candy enriched with trehalose and having the aforesaid advantageous features, a relatively-high moisture and hardness, and a satisfactory stability; and to a process of the same.
To overcome the above object, the present inventors continued studying on the use of saccharide solutions, and more particularly on the use of aqueous trehalose solutions. As a result, they unexpectedly found that a hard candy, enriched with trehalose and having a relatively-high moisture, hardness, and stability, is obtainable by concentrating under heating conditions an aqueous trehalose solution with a relatively-low trehalose concentration, which does not become saturated at around 70° C. with respect to trehalose, to make a moisture content from about 3.5% to about 10% as smooth as possible. Thus, the present inventors accomplished this invention.
To solve the above object, the present invention provides a hard candy with a relatively-high moisture, hardness, and stability by condensing aqueous trehalose solutions to give moisture contents from about 3.5% to about 10%, and preferably those from about 4% to less than 10%.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The trehalose, alias a,a-trehalose, used in the present invention includes any types of trehaloses as long as they can be used for producing the present hard candy, independently of their origins and properties. Trehaloses from different origins, for example, one from yeasts obtained by extraction as disclosed in Japanese Patent Kokai No. 246,097/95, one from maltose by the method with phosphorylases as disclosed in Japanese Patent Kokai No. 216,695/83, and those from starches by the saccharification method with enzymes as disclosed in Japanese Patent Kokai Nos. 170,977/95 and 213,283/95 can be arbitrarily used.
Commercially available high-purity hydrous crystalline trehalose and high-purity anhydrous crystalline trehalose can be appropriately used. For example, “TREHAOSE®”, a high-purity hydrous crystalline trehalose commercialized by Hayashibara Shoji, Inc., Okayama, Japan, can be also used arbitrarily.
Trehalose alone or in combination with other saccharides in an amount that does not spoil the properties of trehalose can be used as the saccharides in the present invention. Usually, the recommendable proportion of trehalose to the total sugars is over 60%, and preferably 65% or higher, on a dry solid basis (d.s.b.).
Examples of the saccharides suitably used in the present invention are one or more saccharides such as glucose, fructose, isomerized sugars, honey, maple syrup, maltose, isomaltose, sucrose, lactose, paratinose, neotrehalose, maltotriose, panose, raffinose, glucosyl trehalose, lactosucrose, isomaltooligosaccharides, soybean oligosaccharides, fructooligosaccharides, oligosaccharides with lactose and fructose, starch hydrolysates, and cyclodextrins; and sugar alcohols such as erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol, lactitol, palatinate, and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates. The proportion of the saccharides to the total sugars can be chosen from those less than 40%, and preferably not higher than 35%, d.s.b., depending on use.
According to the present invention, saccharides, which could not have been used in conventional hard candies, such as fructose, isomerized sugars, honey, maple syrup, xylitol, and sorbitol can be used and easily processed into hard candies with a relatively-high moisture, hardness, and stability.
In the process for producing the present hard candy, the aqueous trehalose solutions preferably used in the present invention include those which have a relatively-low c
Iritani Satoshi
Katagiri Naohiko
Miyake Toshio
Bhat Nina
Browdy and Neimark
Kabushiki Kaisha Hayashibara Seibutsu Kagaku Kenkyujo
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