Photo courtesy of Enreco inc.

At one time, consumers might have made purchase decisions based solely on price. Although price remains a factor, easier access to a wider variety of foods made with unique textures and exotic flavors has given people more sophisticated palates, which in turn has increased the demand for product diversity.

Fortunately, an array of inclusions from the traditional to the unconventional, give bakers a means of differentiating their products. Ingredients that add flavor provide merely one option for product line extensions. Some inclusions enhance a product's textural attributes, while others have added health benefits. This article will describe a select few of the novel inclusion-types available for baking applications.

Say cheese

Cheese offers many benefits when used as an inclusion, from its versatility to its flavor to its nutritional contribution. Common bakery applications include breads and rolls; stuffed-crust pizzas; specialty breads, such as empanadas and Cuban bread, French-style bread with cheese inside; and crackers.

Cheese can be placed directly in the dough and baked, where it becomes part of the bread's matrix. In doing so, it contributes flavor, color and perhaps some texture if its melt is restricted. When used on top of a loaf, cheese provides flavor, but it also will become caramelized, dried and crunchy, so the net effect will be quite different, notes Dean Sommer, cheese and food technologist, Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, Madison, a member of the DMI-sponsored National Dairy Foods Research Center Program.

Bakers must determine the flavor and textural attributes they want in their finished products before deciding on the type of cheese. For instance, when Cuban bread is sliced open, the cheese layer is clearly visible, Sommer notes. In pizza crust, melt characteristics and stretch are important characteristics.

“Sometimes, you have to use some cheeses with flavors that would not be acceptable as a typical table cheese, but would be very acceptable or even optimal in the case of a bakery product,” Sommer says. “Flavor balance makes a cheese acceptable for table cheese, but when cheese is used in a baked product, the balance might be totally different. The lipase flavors, bitterness, or the overall cheesy flavors might be really intense.”

Strong cheeses, such as bleu, Romano or Asiago, are typically used in crackers to produce their characteristic flavor impact.

Photo Courtesy of Dairy management inc.

In a baked application, such as bread or crackers, the cheese flavor must be fairly intense to withstand the process. A pungent bleu cheese, Asiago or Romano work well in such cases, although these strong flavors can be polarizing. “People either love it or hate it, but the flavor really comes through,” Sommer says. “Whereas something mild, such as a Monterey jack, Colby or even a young cheddar, doesn't pack much punch in a bread or cracker application.”

Melt also is critical. In the case of Cuban breads, the cheese shouldn't melt and flow into the bread's matrix, making a no-melt cheese, such as a queso fresco or queso blanco the best option, Sommer notes. A normal melt cheese would work in some applications where flavor is more critical than textural identity. “Cheese used in stuffed pizza crusts shouldn't melt and flow too much because, when you open up the crust, all you see is a hole or void,” Sommer explains. “Also, you don't want to cut into that crust when the pizza is hot and have melted cheese gush out at you. You want some restriction of melt, but not total restriction of flow, so the cheese has some stretch and flow when you bite into it.”

In regards to composition, cheese varies widely in fat and moisture. Bakers should consider how these factors might affect the performance of their products during baking. Salt also is a factor to consider during formulation. Residual sugar, however, may be one of the most important factors. “With residual sugar from the cheese, and protein from the flour, you're going to have varying degrees of Maillard browning, which is especially important if cheese is placed on top of bread or other applications,” Sommer says. “If you use a lot of different cheese varieties in a bread-mozzarella versus Parmesan versus Gouda-the visual look is astounding in terms of just the color. You can almost pick the color you want by picking the variety of cheese used.”