Compression/freezing process improves taste, texture of
microwaveable frozen baked goods
There’s nothing quite like the taste of
freshly baked bread. While those who bake their own get the authentic sensory
experience of a bakery, most consumers aren’t so lucky. Bread loses its optimum
flavor and texture after a day or so, no matter how it is stored.
Freezing extends the life of bread and
other baked goods, but thawing and reheating doesn’t restore the product to its
freshly baked state. Too often, baked goods taste a bit stale and lose some of
their airy texture and moisture after they are frozen. To make matters more
difficult for the baked goods industry and its distributors and retailers,
bread is bulky making it expensive to transport and store.
A new compression and freezing process
developed by Kao Corp. vastly improves the taste and texture of frozen baked
goods that are reheated quickly in a microwave oven while also reducing their
bulk for transportation and storage. The process works well even with products
that are stored frozen for several months. Kao partially cooks (retaining
maximum moisture), compresses, and then uses the steam generated by internal
cooking to finish the process while simultaneously restoring original bulk and
moist freshness.
Using common baking ingredients, this
process reduces the volume of bread, donuts, waffles, cakes, pies, muffins and
other porous food products containing cereal flour and water to as little as
10% of their original bulk. Existing processes also achieve bulk reduction by
freezing and compressing, but require a longer period to reheat and do not
achieve the same quality in the finished product. Often, products require
reheating in a toaster or conventional oven and lose some of their desirable
moistness and fluffy texture after reheating. Under Kao’s method, consumers
simply heat the compressed goodies in a microwave oven for a minute or so, and
the product is restored to its original volume with a freshly baked taste and
texture.
Kao’s process works with products that
are comprised of at least 10% moisture content by weight and 30 to 90% air by
volume. In addition to baked goods, this patented technique works with products
that are cooked using other methods such as roasting, frying, steaming and
stir-frying. The process can also be applied to semi-prepared foods.
After the product is cooked or
semi-cooked, Kao subjects it to rapid freezing making certain that only the
edges of the product, not the middle, freeze. Next, the products are compressed
and vacuum packed and typically sealed in a flexible or rigid plastic package.
In addition to microwaves, other means
of internal vibration heating such as magnetic vibration, high frequency heating
and far infrared heating can be used to reheat the product. A conventional oven
will not produce the best results, however. That’s because external heating,
unlike internal vibration, causes the product to lose moisture making the
surface hard after reheating.
The beauty of Kao’s process is that it
does not require any exotic, expensive ingredients. All of the required
elements are already commonly used in baking. For example, the water-retaining
agents, a key to the process, include ingredients such as gum karaya, xanthan
gum, gelatin and soybean protein.
Though the science behind this process
is not fully understood, Kao believes its success is largely due to the
chemical behavior of fats and/or oils interacting with glutein proteins in
flour. The fats and oils maintain the cell structure of the product due to
their plasticity when frozen and during the reheating process.
However it works, Kao’s process can be
applied to a huge swath of the food industry. With its ability to shave
shipping and storage costs in low-margin industries while improving quality, it
certainly merits a serious look. Kao is offering this patented process for
licensing.
Promotional paragraph:
Kao’s compression/freezing process
improves taste, texture of microwaved baked goods while reducing product size,
shipping costs.