Ferré & Consulting Blog (English Version)

Food giant General Mills has won an Edison Best New Product award for its Betty Crocker Gluten Free Dessert Mixes.

The products took home at gold award at the ceremony, which was held in New York, US, last week.

Betty Crocker was the first nationally recognised brand to launch gluten free brownie, cookie and cake mixes aimed at people with specific dietary requirements.

“We are thrilled that Betty Crocker Gluten Free Dessert Mixes won gold and are honoured to have one of the strongest brand icons in the food industry associated with one of America’s greatest inventors,” said Jodi Benson, baking research and development and transformational business development director for General Mills.

“It has been extremely rewarding to welcome gluten free consumers back to Betty Crocker through this innovative line of products.”

Other winners in the awards’ food segment included Con Agra’s Healthy Choice Mixers which received a silver accolade.

Source: Ingredients Network

Companies, Pastry General Mills, gluten free brownie

Tate & Lyle is launching a new modified corn starch for bakery and pastry creams and custards, which is claimed to deliver both cuttability and good mouthfeel.

When used in creams and custards native starches tend to deliver a firm gel, which is easy to cut and does not stick to the knife but lacks good texture and mouthfeel properties. Most modified starches, on the other hand, deliver on the mouthfeel but make a sticky mess when the cake is served.

This can put bakers in something of a quandary. In the past, the may have tried to find their own solution by combining native starch and modified starch, but it can be very hard to achieve the right results consistently, Caroline Sanders, marketing manager at Tate & Lyle.

With its new starch, called Resistamyl 140, Tate & Lyle sought to find the a middle ground between the two. When used in hot-processed creams for pastry or biscuit layers, it is said to give good adhesiveness but still be shapable – and does not stick to the equipment.

“Sometimes you want to cut a cake, but it’s a mess by the time you put it on a plate,” said Sanders. “It can help bakers design a high quality product with good mouthfeel.”

She said the real market benefit is that it provides the tools to modulate viscosity. While the major obstacles in getting the firmness/mouthfeel balance right have been overcome, bakers can then combine Resistamyl 140 with native starches themselves to fine-tune the texture to suit their precise needs.

The new starch is an extension of Tate & Lyle’s existing Resistamyl line and is not intended to replace other offerings. It is said to be easy to handle, and to require only short cooking time.

Pastry cakes, mouthfeel, starches

Erythritol structure

Formulating cookies with erythritol may allow for partial replacement of sugar without the consumer tasting a difference, says new research from Taiwan.

Up to 50 per cent of the sugar content of Danish cookies was replaced with the low-calorie sweetener without noticeable changes to colour, sweetness, hardness, flavour and overall liking, according to findings published in the Journal of Food Quality.

Against the backdrop of soaring obesity and diabetic statistics, consumer and political pressure is driving manufacturers to slice calories from their food formulations.

Erythritol, a bulk sweetener polyol that occurs at low levels in some fruits and fermented foods, contains a variety of benefits, including zero-calorie content, low GI index and a low laxative effect. The ingredient, manufactured by Jungbunzlauer and Cargill, is already marketed towards diabetics, since it does not affect glucose and insulin levels.

“There is no published information on the effects of erythritol on the quality characteristics of cookies,” explained the researchers from Hungkuang University and the National Chung-Hsing University. “It would be beneficial to develop the novel formulation of cookie production with erythritol.”

The Taiwanese researchers therefore set out to formulate a range of Danish cookies with erythritol replacing 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100 per cent of sugar (sucrose).

“It is anticipated that the result of this study will be viewed as a reference to food industries,” they added

Formulation details

Using erythritol obtained from Japan’s Mitsubishi-Kagaku Foods Company, the Taiwanese researchers formulated a range of cookies with increasing degrees of sucrose replacement, from zero to 100 per cent.

After baking, there was no difference in moisture, protein, and fat content of any of the cookies formulated with sugar or partial or full replacement with erythritol, said the researchers.

Furthermore, they note that the bulk sweetener was stable during baking.

Seven trained tasters evaluated the cookies and noted a cooling sensation at the higher erythritol levels of 50, 75 and 100 per cent, while there was no difference in the moistness and hardness of the samples.

The tasters also noted no difference in the colour, flavour, hardness, sweetness, and overall liking of cookies prepared with up to 50 per cent replacement of sucrose with erythritol. Higher levels of replacement decreased these sensory qualities, they added.

“A successful and novel formulation of Danish cookie production with erythritol was developed,” stated the researchers. “Danish cookies formulated with partial replacement of sucrose with up to 50 per cent erythritol had sensory and physical quality characteristics comparable with cookies prepared with 100 per cent sucrose.

“A partial replacement of erythritol for sucrose in Danish cookies may produce healthier and lower-calorie cookies to humans,” they concluded.

Ingredients, Pastry

The next generation of gluten-free products may be achieved with sourdough technology and better processing of oats, according to the EU’s HealthGrain project.

While oats do not contain gluten, the proteins they do contain do not possess the unique visco-elastic properties characteristic of wheat gluten, thus oat doughs resemble cake batters rather than bread doughs.

In an attempt to overcome these challenges researchers participating in the European Union project HealthGrain project examined the effects of processing on the final bread structure and its nutritional content.

Care with oats

It should be noted that, although oats do not actually contain gluten there is some concern over their presence in foods since they are commonly contaminated during processing with gluten from wheat, rye or barley, according to Coeliac UK.

According to the HealthGrain researchers, sourdough fermentation and hydrostatic pressure (HP) processing show potential to improve oat bread quality. The data showed that high quality oat bread could be achieved using wholegrain oat flours with low batter viscosity, low flour water hydration capacity, starch content of above 65 per cent, protein content of about 12 per cent, low starch damage and coarse particle size.

The researchers also noted that different oat varieties yielded better quality bread than others, dependent on the protein and fat content, starch properties as well as alpha-amylase activity.

The researchers, led by Professor Elke Arendt from University College Cork, also examined the effect of sourdough on oat bread quality and indentified superior performance of lactic acid bacterial strains which are not commonly found in wheat or rye sourdoughs.

Pressure

Improved protein networks were achieved using HP, said the researchers, when pressures of 350 MPa were used or more were used. At lower pressure, the researchers noted a weakening of protein structures. Addition of HP-treated oat batters to oat bread resulted in improved volume and decreased staling at 200 MPa, while higher pressures did not improve oat bread quality, they said.

Blooming market

Gluten-free foods have rapidly increased in popularity over the past few years – partly as a result of better diagnosis of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder triggered by exposure to gluten, the protein in wheat, barley, rye and spelt. However, there has also been a mass movement toward gluten-free products by those who have self-diagnosed wheat or gluten intolerance or who believe gluten-free to be a healthier way of eating.

Since it was valued at a modest $580m in 2004, the global market has grown at an average annual rate of 29 per cent and last year was worth $1.56bn, according to Packaged Facts. It could be worth as much as $2.6bn by 2012.

The nutritional content of gluten-free foods is an increasing area of concern. Many of these products are characterised by reduced nutrient contents. In most cases, such products are not fortified and are poorer in B vitamins, iron, folate, and dietary fibre than gluten-containing formulations. Gluten-free foods also fall beyond the realm of fortification programmes.

One area showing promise is the use of alternative or ‘ancient’ grains, such as amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, brown rice, sorghum, and teff. Only recently, scientists from the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University in New York reported that the use of such alternative flour sources could improve intakes of protein, iron, calcium and fibre (Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics).

Oats have been receiving increased attention based on their nutritional quality, linked to the total dietary fibre and beta-glucan content. Beyond beta-glucan, oats also contain high amounts of other valuable nutrients such as proteins, unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

The HealthGrain project included researchers from University College Cork in Ireland and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Health, Ingredients gluten-free products, oats, sourdough technology