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
2000-11-13
2002-12-03
Paden, Carolyn (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
C426S306000, C426S631000, C426S101000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06488971
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to coatings for ice cream novelty items, and particularly relates to coatings for novelty ice cream items where the coating exhibits resiliency. Typically, the novelty ice cream items are in the form of an ice cream bar on a stick.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Coated ice cream novelty items have been known for many years. Such coated ice cream novelty items are typically chocolate coated, although other flavored, sugar and fat based coatings can be used.
The present invention is particularly directed to chocolate coated ice cream novelties; and is particularly directed to so-called “premium” ice cream novelty items. By that, it is meant that the present invention is directed toward high quality ice cream novelty items that sell at a relatively high price in the market and which are comprised of high quality, top grade materials. Such items are generally found in the form of ice cream bars having a stick placed in the middle thereof, but other forms and variations of ice cream items may be found in the market to which the present application is equally relevant.
Typically, lower priced ice cream novelty items may have as much as 30% to 40% of their volume comprised of air—the ice cream being a high over-run product. Moreover, such low priced ice cream novelty items are very often made from ice cream or, indeed, ice milk, which has a low fat content. While such products may be favored by certain sectors of the market because of their low caloric content, they are also less attractive because they have less flavor, or artificially enhanced flavors. Premium novelty ice cream items, on the other hand, generally have less than about 30% volume by air, and have a much higher fat content in the ice cream.
In either event, however, if the novelty ice cream item is coated with a chocolate coating, the chocolate coating may be almost the same. While such coatings are called “chocolate” coatings, in fact they are not pure chocolate coatings. At least in North America, dispensations have been received from Governmental agencies responsibility for the quality and labelling of food items to label the coating as being “chocolate”, even though the coating may comprise a high percentage by weight of vegetable oil.
Indeed, coatings that are used on ice cream novelty items must contain, until now, a high percentage by weight of vegetable oil because otherwise their melting point would be far too high. The melting point of chocolate is very high, being well above room temperature; and, in some instances, above mouth temperature. Thus, in order to make the coating composition for the coating on the ice cream to be such that it will not be exceedingly hard and brittle, and have high snap, at temperatures below 0° C., it is necessary to depress the melting point of chocolate. Even the melting point of milk chocolate is very high. Accordingly, manufacturers of ice cream novelty products having chocolate coatings thereon have been awarded the right, in Canada and the United States, to label their products as having a “chocolate” coating even though the melting point of the chocolate or milk chocolate has been depressed by the addition of a vegetable oil thereto. Such vegetable oils are typically cottonseed oil, soybean oil, canola oil, and other long chain oils.
Quite surprisingly, the present inventor has determined that it is possible to lower the melting point of chocolate or milk chocolate to an acceptable level for use as a coating composition for ice cream novelty items, by the addition of butter fat to the chocolate composition. In other words, the present invention comprises a composition that has two fat systems—the chocolate fat system and the butter fat system—and which has a melting point or characteristic SFI curve that is depressed.
Moreover, by the addition of butter fat in keeping with the present invention, the chocolate coating composition will exhibit a noticeable resiliency. That means, that the chocolate coating compositions in keeping with the present invention have a more controlled and gentle snap, are less brittle, and exhibit a less flaky characteristic when first bitten into. This resiliency also has a further advantage in that handling of the products is more easily accommodated with less danger of breaking or cracking the coating on the ice cream bar or other novelty item.
Of course, it is recognized that the cost of adding a butter fat constituent to a coating for ice cream novelty products, as opposed to depressing the melting point thereof by the use of vegetable oil, may significantly increase the costs of the chocolate coating composition. Nonetheless, when the chocolate coating composition is used in association with premium quality ice cream to produce high quality, high priced ice cream novelty items, then the added cost to the coating composition when viewed in relation to the price of the product, may be less significant than it would otherwise appear.
Still further, an advantage of employing a resilient chocolate coating composition in keeping with the present invention is such that the manufacturer of the ice cream novelty product can label and advertise the product as comprising pure chocolate.
In other words, the labelling can provide a list of constituents for the chocolate coating such that it may recite only chocolate liquor and cocoa butter, sugar, and butter fat; and, optionally but usually, whole milk solids. Other trace constituents such as vanilla or other flavoring, or lecithin, might also be employed, as described hereafter.
As employed herein, the term “chocolate coating” may mean a dark chocolate coating or it may mean a milk chocolate coating—one which includes whole milk solids.
The resilient pure chocolate coating composition of the present invention provides a eutectic composition in the truest sense of the word. The composition is such that the two fat systems, the chocolate fat system and the butter fat system, and indistinguishable one from the other. Moreover, the mouth feel or organoleptic release of flavor of the chocolate coating is different from chocolate coatings as they are presently found in the market because the tongue senses a smoother, softer, less crispy chocolate film or coating, having a softer or less pronounced snap, together with a more complete and more rapid release of flavour.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,474 issued Jan. 7, 1997, the inventor herein has provided a method of preparation of chocolate crumb. In that patent, the present inventor teaches an anhydrous chocolate crumb where anhydrous butter fat may be added to a dried mix so as to provide a final analysis for the total amount of dried milks and anhydrous butter fat up to specified amounts.
In another U.S. Pat. No. 5,672,373 issued Sep. 30, 1997, the present inventor has provided a method of producing anhydrous whole milk powder having full fat recovery for further use. There, the anhydrous milk powder is added back to dried skim milk in designated quantities, and blended so as to have the same constituent make-up of ordinary dry whole milk, but wherein all of the fat constituent is recoverable as fat. That anhydrous milk powder is particularly intended for use by the chocolate industry, in the manufacture of milk chocolate; although it may also be used in the manufacture of dry baking mixes or other prepared foods where dried milk powder is not to be re-hydrated.
WARKENTIN U.S. Pat. No. 3,959,516 issued May 25, 1976 teaches a classic method for producing a solid chocolate composition which is suitable for coating ice cream. Here, cocoa powder is milled, with or without an additional chocolate liquor, but together with sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, salt, lecithin, and optionally whey powder or low fat milk powder. The purpose is to provide wafers of chocolate which have a softening point of about 100° F., which solid chocolate wafers are easily handled. When a chocolate coating for ice cream is intended to be made, the wafers are stirred into warm vegetable oil, having a temperature of ab
Choy Edward
Miller Van
Miller Vladimir
(Marks & Clerk)
Cargill Limited
Paden Carolyn
LandOfFree
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