Cake improvers can increase the softness and moistness of cakes, which helps extend shelf life.

Photo courtesy of Briess Malt & InGredients Co.

Sweet stuff

If bread, rolls, bagels and pizza crusts are the bakery foods of daily life, baked products for special occasions have to live up to higher expectations.

Earlier this year, Puratos, Cherry Hill, N.J., collaborated with Novozyme's enzyme technology to improve its line of cake improvers. This collaboration, according to Puratos, shows that it can provide 30 percent to 35 percent additional softness and moistness in a product made with this new cake improver compared with standard cakes. Softness and moistness can be maintained anywhere from four weeks to three months after baking.

This reportedly occurs because the ingredient slows the retrogradation of starch molecules in wheat flour, and increased freshness is achieved by keeping the crumb more cohesive and soft. Puratos measured freshness based on several parameters, such as softness, moistness, short bite or easy to swallow, cohesiveness and resiliency.

The big chill

Refrigerated or frozen products, such as biscuits or rolls, are chemically leavened. “The big issue here is you don't want any reactions to occur before they're baked, so we encapsulate the bicarbonate to prevent it from reacting prematurely with the acid products,” Beavan says. “The capsule melts off in the oven allowing the bicarbonate to react so as to provide the results the customer is looking for. Or we might replace a faster acting acidulant with a slower acting one, such as glucono delta lactone, or with something that can only be activated in the oven, such as magnesium hydrogen phosphate. There are many variations available, it just depends on the environment.”

A frozen dough, Beavan explains, is mixed at a cold temperature, somewhere around 65°F, whereas a fresh dough is mixed at 80°F. “You can't have the yeast working because it will start to proof too early, so you have to mix small batches of dough at a low temperature.”

These refrigerated and frozen products help illustrate the value of encapsulating the various dough conditioners and other elements to help guarantee proper product performance under the right conditions. “An encapsulated ingredient holds the dough conditioner in place so it doesn't get released into the dough until needed,” Beaven says.

The company also sources enzymes from around the world, and with its combination of proprietary information on encapsulation and specialty milling technology, “we can pull from an encapsulate, which melts a little earlier or a little later, source enzymes that give the type of activity the customer needs, and pre-scale everything in a water soluble, edible package. We offer different tools for delivering the dough conditioner,” Beaven adds.

But no matter who or where you find your drivers, finding the right vehicle with the right speed and the right dough conditioner for your baked product and processing conditions is the first step on the road to successful, quality baking.