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
2002-05-07
2004-06-22
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
C426S138000, C426S283000, C426S496000, C426S516000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06753026
ABSTRACT:
PRIOR ART
Bread is a common food in many countries. In particular dark whole grain rye bread is becoming more and more popular.
Apart from this growth platform, snacking is also a growing consumer trend all over the world with emphasis on sweet and salty snacks. What is missing are convenient and premium quality savory snacks based on bread, in particular dark rye bread, with, e.g., cheese or sausage filling.
Longer shelf life, dough-based snacks with fillings are currently made by combining, e.g., fat-based creams in various flavor directions or fruit fillings with the raw dough prior to the baking process.
Existing wheat dough-based snacks with fillings or salty crackers filled with fat-based cream have in common that they are very dry and often not of good quality. To be shelf stable, it is necessary that the water content of these snacks is low. A synonym for dryness is the amount of free water in this food product measured as the so-called water activity (Aw value) where pure water represents the value 1. A dry cracker provides an Aw of about 0.2 and a soft yeast dough or a biscuit dough provide Aw values of about 0.80-0.89. At these levels, the risk of pathogenic bacteria growth is almost zero, however, good GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) is required when processing in order also to reduce the risk of potential yeast and mold growth.
To prevent filled bread dough snacks getting soggy after baking in particular with aging, it is required that the filling has a water activity similar to or reduced with respect to that of the dough. This balanced water activity ensures that water is not transferred between the filling and the dough. Savory or sweet dairy-based creams can be formulated to match a similar water activity, but they then taste very dry and no longer fresh. When a fresh slice of bread is spread with butter and topped with, e.g., cream cheese, it is known that this is done for immediate consumption. It needs to be eaten within hours because of moisture transferring from the topping into the bread. Fresh dairy products such as fresh cheese or cream cheese have a water activity of about 0.98-0.99, process cheese spreads or sausage spreads have such about 0.96 due to their high salt contents.
Shelf stable or chilled storage stable snacks consisting of dough and filling are currently made by adding, e.g., an Aw-reduced, fat-based, sweet dairy cream to the raw yeast dough prior to baking or to the baked goods after baking and cooling. When making dough-enrobed snacks using sweet or savory fillings with Aw values greater than 0.85, it is recommended to bake the snack fully with the filling to achieve optimum GMP. As described earlier, longer shelf life dough-based snacks are made by adding the filling to the raw dough prior to baking. During baking, the filling gets exposed to the convecting heat. Depending on the baking time required for the individual type of dough, it could happen that the filling inside eventually starts to cook. Hand in hand with that, the pressure created steam leads to an expansion of the filling creating a pressure on the dough. When the dough is not flexible enough or does not expand in like manner, it is possible that the filling escapes explosively through cracks in the dough destroying the complete snack. The resulting postbaking product would not be acceptable for the consumer. Making conventional rye bread is based on very long baking processes. Because of this, it is extremely difficult to produce, e.g., cream cheese-filled rye bread snacks.
Making filled bread snacks in general involves a further issue, especially when using flexible raising doughs based on yeast or leavening agents. These doughs sustain the expansion of the filling during baking but it is often observed that a hollow space remains inside the snack on top of the filling after cooling. This is an obvious quality defect and reduces the consumer acceptance of the snack.
It was known that dark rye bread has a fairly long shelf life in comparison with other more wheat dough-based breads. This is mainly due to it being made from sour fermented rye dough which provides the rye bread with a low pH post baking of about 4.4-4.6. When this bread is additionally fully pasteurized in a closed container post baking, a shelf life of up to 6 months at ambient storage can be achieved. Different from other breads, rye bread is also fairly moist having a water activity of about 0.95-0.97 depending on the freshness and formulation of the bread.
Upon spreading cream cheese with an Aw value of about 0.99 on a slice of dark rye bread, e.g., pumpernickel, it does happen that the rye bread will become soggy after a while because the relative Aw difference still brings about a significant moisture transfer. The present invention relates to a process for making a rye bread snack with, e.g., a cream cheese type filling and which is stable for more than 6 or 12 weeks at chilled storage conditions without significant moisture transfer.
It is also known that the taste of bread or other baked goods is created especially during the baking process. The exposure to heat causes the caramelization of the sugar components or a Maillard reaction of the other dough components resulting in the typical baking aromas, flavors and colors. This is especially true for the rye bread baking process. Rye bread needs to be baked fairly long to get the typical dark color and strong flavor. As described above, it would be extremely difficult to make a filled rye bread snack exposed to such a baking process.
NL-A-8100325 describes a process for making a novel filled rye bread which needs long baking times and wherein the product is packed hot into foils.
DE-A-41 42 018 describes a process for making a shelf stable filled bread. This process has the disadvantage that the moisture transfer is not resolved, fillings are very limited and pasteurization takes place in two special plastic foils.
DE-A-39 25 055 teaches a process for making natural filled food (rye bread) which starts from raw sourdough and uses a full baking process. The shelf life of the products is short because the moisture transfer is not taken into consideration.
DE-U-296 09 924 illustrates a process for making a dough-enrobed sausage wherein prebaked rye dough is used for coating a special sausage which is for immediate consumption. An in-pack pasteurization process is not mentioned.
DE-A-25 15 224 describes a process for making a cuttable ready-to-eat dish which uses a special layering technique to make a baked meal preparation based on rye bread for immediate consumption.
All of those prior art references have in common that the aspects of shelf life and durability with regard to any quality defects because of moisture transfer or micro-biological constrains are not mentioned.
PROBLEM UNDERLYING THE INVENTION
The problem underlying the present invention is to provide novel filled dough enrobed snacks which provide a more fresh tasting filling, a good authentic bread taste, an optimum filling volume distribution in the inside of the bread and a long shelf life under chilled and ambient conditions.
THE INVENTION
The invention provides a process for making bread snacks with fillings of high water content and shelf lives at chilled and ambient temperatures of more than six weeks and which is characterized in that baked bread is used as raw material.
The invention also provides the bread snacks which are obtainable by that process.
The process is especially useful for snacks on the basis of rye bread.
The process of the invention preferably includes the followings steps:
(i) the baked bread is ground
(ii) water is added to the ground bread to improve its extrudability and to adjust its water activity to about 0.95-0.98 or higher,
(iii) the bread/water mixture is kneaded to a bread dough,
(iv) the bread dough is coextruded with the filling and
(v) the snacks are formed, packed and pasteurized.
In a preferred embodiment, glycerine is added in step (ii) in an amount of up to about 5 weight-% to permit the adjustment of the target water activity and to improve
Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery
Kraft Foods R & D Inc.
Tran Lien
LandOfFree
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