Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Processes – Molding – casting – or shaping
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-25
2001-11-20
Yeung, George C. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Processes
Molding, casting, or shaping
C222S386000, C222S409000, C425S376100, C426S519000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06319532
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and a tooling for preparation of an extruded food confection. More particularly, it relates to a method and an associated tooling permitting the preparation of extruded food confections comprising at least two soft constituents made of different substances and flavors and possibly a centre core made of solid ingredients as a fresh fruit, smarties, chocolate, caramel, crumbled coffee crisp, and the like.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The confection of hard or soft ice cream and frozen yogurt deserts has become very popular in the past years. More recently, some attempts have been made to offer soft serve ice cream in a large selection of flavors as is available for hard frozen ice cream and frozen yogurt, but with very limited success. Indeed, the addition of fruits or liquid flavoring tends to increase the temperature and density of the product. This has no significant drawbacks for hard ice cream since the product is cooled after preparation and the initial air content, usually higher than for soft ice cream, can be adjusted accordingly in the initial steps of the preparation process. Similarly, a yogurt based frozen confection is prepared from hard and frozen portions to which fruits or concentrated flavors are incorporated by mixing. The average temperature and air content (overrun) are thus increased with respect to the base hard frozen product. To obtain a soft mixture with the expected texture and consistence that mixture is then extruded from the mixing chamber to form the final product. Such a process is accomplished by a homogenization or yogurt machine with combined chopping, mixing and extruding functions of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,561 (Ney, 1987), No. 4,861,255 (Ney, 1989) and 5,208,050 (Ney, 1993). It is also known to use such an apparatus to prepare a serving of flavored soft ice cream from a serving of hard ice cream with addition of fruits, liquid flavoring, nuts and the like.
A recent attempt to widen the spectrum of available flavors for the preparation of stripped or twisted confections is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,743,640 (Crossley, 1998).
Experience with this type of equipment tends to prove poor performance, the prepared confections being small, compact and rapidly melting for a given weight of ice cream. These confections cannot be dipped in coatings such as chocolate, caramel, nuts or candies.
From that survey of above methods and equipment of the prior art, it becomes obvious that they fail at responding to the market need for a soft ice cream confection of good quality in a plurality of custom selectable flavors in a simple and economical manner.
The limitation of the prior art is that the current state of the art is far from permitting of a striped soft ice cream confection incorporating two or more custom prepared flavors, with the possibility of adding solid or high density ingredients to the individual flavored ice cream streams or hidden in the centre of the confection.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is a general object of the present invention to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion of soft serve ice cream confections, which overcomes the limitations and drawbacks of the above mentioned solutions of the prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion permitting the preparation of multi flavored striped or twisted soft serve ice cream, ice milk or frozen yogurt confections made from different streams of custom mixed soft serve ice cream base.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion permitting the preparation of a soft serve ice cream product with optimal texture, temperature and air content parameters thus permitting the food product to further be manipulated as for highly sought after chocolate, caramel or candy coating.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion permitting the preparation of stripped or twisted soft serve ice cream or other food product confection comprising an inner core of solid ingredients incorporated into one or more of the ice cream streams extruded.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion permitting the preparation of stripped or twisted soft serve ice cream or other food product confection comprising an inner core of viscous liquid product such as fudge, honey caramel or the like.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food product extrusion permitting the preparation of stripped or twisted soft serve ice cream or other food confection having optimal air content, temperature and density parameters after the incorporation of an unlimited combination of flavored syrups or solid ingredients.
Else an object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion permitting the preparation of stripped or twisted food confections economically with a few basic pieces of equipment and with minimal cleaning requirements.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a method and tooling for food extrusion that is safe to use, compatible with currently available machines, easy to assemble, and relatively inexpensive to manufacture and maintain.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a careful reading of the detailed description provided herein, with appropriate reference to the accompanying drawings.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method and tooling for food extrusion method for food extrusion comprising the steps of:
a) releasably installing an extrusion container having generally elliptically shaped open cavity with a frustro-conical shaped bottom terminated by a circular outlet on a base plate of an extrusion assembly;
b) placing a food product to fill the cavity of the extrusion container, said food product including at least one soft constituent;
c) activating an elliptically frustro-conical shaped piston via a manual arm by applying pressure on the piston to downwardly push the food product contained in the cavity of the extrusion container, said piston being coaxial to the cavity and adapted to slidably engage the same;
d) extruding the food product by providing circular downward flowing of the same with variable speed through the cavity down to the outlet of the extrusion container while performing a blending of air into the food product and twisting of the same;
e) collecting the food product being extruded from the container into a receiving receptacle.
Preferably, the piston includes a sealing member to provide a seal between the same and said container thus preventing said food product to back flow therebetween.
Preferably, the method for food extrusion further comprises, after step b), the following step:
b′) placing a sheet like material over the container to close the cavity, said material is slightly stretchable and resistant to tear under stress.
Preferably, the food product includes at least two soft constituents, said constituents placed adjacent to each other within the cavity and said food product further includes at least one solid ingredient or includes at least two soft constituents, said constituents placed adjacent to each other within the cavity.
Preferably, the food product further includes at least one solid ingredient.
Preferably, step b) of the method further includes locating the solid ingredient at a substantially central region of the cavity.
Preferably, the soft constituents are different flavors of an ice cream.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a tooling for food extrusion that comprises an extrusion container having a generally elliptically shaped open cavity with a frustro-conical shaped bottom terminated by a circular outlet and being removably secured on a base plate of an extrusion assembly, a piston having an elliptically frustro-conical
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