Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Surface coated – fluid encapsulated – laminated solid... – Isolated whole seed – bean or nut – or material derived therefrom
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-06
2003-03-25
Tran, Lien (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Surface coated, fluid encapsulated, laminated solid...
Isolated whole seed, bean or nut, or material derived therefrom
C426S283000, C426S289000, C426S295000, C426S496000, C426S549000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06537599
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for making bakery goods that exhibit a high degree of edible particulate visibility. The method of this invention maximizes the visibility of edible particulates on the top surface of the bakery goods and provides a means for mass producing a product having a desirable home-made appearance. The invention also relates to bakery goods and the dough from which they are made.
2. Related Background Art
Baked goods, such as biscuits, cookies, brownies and the like, were all hand made until the early 19th century. Since that time, in Europe and the United States, many new varieties were born and the trade developed rapidly. In the United States, a major outgrowth of the early biscuit trade is a relatively mature cookie and cracker industry. Modern cookies take innumerable forms, from relatively soft, moist, short-shelf-life cookies to relatively hard, dry cookies which remain edible for relatively long periods of time. Other forms include cookies having a frosting or filling, and cookies with inclusions such as chocolate chips or nuts.
There are substantial differences between the home-made baked cookie and the machine-made baked cookie. In general, the texture of the home-made cookie is less homogeneous than that texture of the machine made cookie. When inclusions such as discrete edible particles are present, the inclusions are more uniformly distributed in a machine-made cookie than in a home-made cookie. When the edible particles are distributed on the surface of the cookie, their distribution is more uneven in the home-made cookie. Such homogeneity of the machine-made cookie is generally the result of (i) the large batches of material that are generally used that require more thorough mixing, (ii) the large machinery that mix more thoroughly, and (iii) the high speeds that the mechanized processes are run at for efficiency.
Most types of home-made baked food products are generally characterized by a random, non-uniform topography. The topography results from the hand-shaping of the dough into a desired shape prior to baking. The home-prepared food product may also contain discrete pieces of edible particles as inclusions or the edible particles may be placed on the surface of the food product. Examples of such particles include chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, nutmeats, bits of fruit such as raisins, and sugar coated candies such as M&M's® brand chocolate candies or Reeses Pieces®.
The inclusion particles can be distributed throughout the baked good. However, the inclusion particles have a higher degree of visibility when the particles are on the surface of the baked food product. Thus, inclusion particles are often distributed on the top surface of home-baked goods prior to baking.
In contrast, as discussed above, baked food products made commercially generally have a uniform topography due to the automated processes employed. As a result of considerations of speed and mass throughput, most high-speed manufacturing methods of making baked food products such as chocolate chip cookies, containing inclusion particles, are typically prepared by mixing the inclusion particles into the cookie dough. A continuous process is used to form a dough rope having the particles randomly distributed within the cookie dough. The cookie dough is then cut into individual pieces, i.e., dough preforms, using a cutting wire. The dough preforms are baked to form the cookie containing the particles.
A significant disadvantage, however, is that the majority of the discrete particles are contained within the cookie and are not visible on the outer surface of the cookie. Surveys have found that consumers generally prefer a food product that prominently shows edible particles compared to a food product having included particles that are less visible. Moreover, this lack of “show” in baked food products is economically disadvantageous since the edible particles are generally a more expensive component than the dough. Accordingly, processes to increase the visibility of particle inclusions at the surface of the food products are highly desirable.
An example of a method to improve the show of inclusion particles is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,904. This patent describes a method to increase the visibility of edible material in baked foods by penetrating a continuously moving dough rope, containing distributed food particles, with pins or various disk means that engage and transversely move a portion of the randomly distributed particles through a preselected peripheral area of the continuously moving dough rope that corresponds to a preselected surface of the baked products. This method does not, however, result in one hundred percent show. Moreover, dough containing hard or large edible particulates are difficult to wire cut.
Current baked food product methods that employ a wire cutting process to form dough preforms disadvantageously allow for the inclusion of only very small food particles in the dough. Larger food particles will frequently cause breakage of the cutting wire or the particles may be forced out of the dough by the wire as it passes through the dough across the extruder nozzle. This results in a waste of food particles and in some cases complete disruption of the production process in order to fix the broken wire. Furthermore, the larger particles may prevent the wire from cutting all the way through the dough resulting in random tearing of portions of the dough pieces. Also, as the wire encounters relatively large particles, the wire may cause excessive lateral movement of a given dough piece or non-uniform lateral movement of a given dough piece to dough piece. Random displacement of the severed dough pieces results in a non-uniform arrangement of the dough pieces on the conveyor belt or band upon which the dough pieces land. The non-uniform arrangement of the dough pieces can lead to dough piece transfer problems with respect to other belts or non-uniform baking of the pieces.
One manner of avoiding the use of a wire cutter is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,741,916. This patent describes a method and apparatus for producing individual dough pieces of substantially constant size and shape by passing a continuous dough rope between a pair of horizontally reciprocating cutting elements. The use of such cutting device does not provide a means of improving show of edible particles and its success on dough containing large particulates is dubious.
The use of a wire cutter is also avoided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,667 which discloses making a cookie preform from a continuous rope of dough through the use of mechanical fingers. The resulting cookies are said to have a highly variegated topography. While it is asserted that the visibility of inclusions may be improved, this method does not provide one hundred percent visibility. In addition, the fingers may damage certain inclusions.
One potential solution to increase the visibility of edible particles in a baked food product would be to sprinkle additional pieces of edible particles on the dough preform's outer surface prior to baking the preform. An attempt of this is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,084, which describes a machine for making cookies in which dough is extruded from a cylinder and deposited onto a conveyor belt. The machine sprinkles particulate material onto the conveyor belt for application to the underside of the cookie and sprinkles onto the cookies themselves. However, depending on the tackiness of the preform's outer surface, it is quite likely that much of the particle material would fall off—either prior to or during the baking step. Accordingly, such methods are not generally commercially feasible without a dough formulation developed specifically for the required tackiness while still maintaining good baking and other processing properties. Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,084 forms the shape of the cookie with cutting knifes after the dough has been deposited. This mass cutting makes it difficult to obtain a h
Brown, III Valertine
McConn Jay A.
Stonehill Suzy J.
Taylor Jana D.
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Mars Incorporated
Tran Lien
LandOfFree
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