BE1016038B5 - BAKING BREAD FROM FROZEN PASTA AND PREPARING SUCH PASTA. - Google Patents

Abstract

When baking a loaf in a heated oven space, a frozen dough piece is assumed without completely defrosting the dough piece before baking in a heated oven space. Baking takes place during a baking time divided into at least two phases. A heating phase thereof takes up at least 10% of the baking time. During the heating-up phase, the oven temperature is between 110 ° C and 160 ° C. During a clothing phase after the heating-up phase, the oven temperature is substantially higher than the oven temperature during the heating-up phase. Thus, starting from a frozen dough piece, a bread can be baked which has a fine, evenly distributed structure of cavities.

Description

BAKING BREAD FROM FROZEN PASTA DAKES AND PREPARATION OF DERnfîttïïfïï.

dough pieces T "~

FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a method according to the introductory part of claim 1. Such a method is known from European patent application 0 114 451.

Traditionally, bread is prepared at night and during the night to complete the baking as shortly as possible before the bread is offered for sale and to obtain a product that is accepted as fresh until the end of the day. Apart from unpleasant working hours for the people who carry out the bread-making process, this approach entails the problem that the demand for bread must be predicted in advance of a day in order to bake or order the correct quantity, so that on the one hand during the day no there is a shortage of bread and on the other hand no residual stock of bread remains at the end of the day.

In order to also be able to bake bread during the day and to respond to variations in the demand for bread as well as the demand for different types of bread, it has long been known to freeze dough and bake the bread from the prefabricated dough. In general, the dough is frozen in an unfermented state and thawed and fermented prior to baking, because when freezing the dough in fermented state and frozen baking problems arise with the texture of the dough, in particular unevenly distributed cavities. This is explained by the poorer cold resistance of yeast cells in fermented dough compared to the cold-resistance of yeast cells in unfermented dough.

However, defrosting and proving the bread prior to baking requires a considerable amount of time, depending on the type of bread roughly one to two hours. Baking then also takes some time, so that it is only possible to respond to extra demand for bread with great delay. This means that from about three hours before closing time it is no longer useful to respond to any large demand for bread by removing extra bread from the freezer, defrosting and proving it and then baking.

Many proposals have already been made to prepare a dough which is deep-frozen in at least a substantial degree of fermentation and does not need to be defrosted and fermented prior to baking, but at least said negative effects on the texture of the bread to a significant extent.

These proposals focus, among other things, on increasing the amount of active yeast after freezing, for example by adding another yeast after fermenting at low temperature and then immediately freezing (U.S. Patent No. 894,505), addition of substances which stimulate the activity of yeast (U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,975). Other proposals include the addition of alcohol (French patent specification 2 077 037, European patent application 0 384 539) and the use of special dough compositions with high protein (European patent application 0 115 108) or high gluten (French patent application 2 344 229 ). European patent application 0 384 539 also mentions a large number of other measures that contribute to the quality of bread baked directly from risen and frozen dough pieces. In the initially mentioned European patent application 0 114 451, it is proposed to add a freezing pulpit reducer to the dough, which freezing point reducer can also be an alcohol.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the invention to improve the structure of bread that is directly baked starting from pieces of dough that have been deep-frozen in at least a substantially fermented state.

This object is achieved according to the present invention by performing the baking of a dough piece as set out in claim 1. The invention can also be embodied in a method according to claim 17.

The invention can in principle also be applied in combination with various measures already known for improving the structure of bread that is directly baked from pieces of dough that have been deep-frozen in an at least substantially fermented state.

Particularly advantageous elaborations of the invention are described in the dependent claims.

In the following the invention is further illustrated and elucidated on the basis of an exemplary embodiment with reference to the drawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

Figs. 1-3 are examples of room temperature-time diagrams concerning freezing,

FIG. 4 is a schematic top view of a carousel freezer with dough pieces,

FIG. 5 is a schematic frontal view of applying decorative material to a dough piece, and

Figs. 6 and 7 are graphs which are examples of temperature changes over time in the baking of dough pieces according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

For preparing dough pieces using an example of a method according to the invention, for example, a conventional recipe for a bread dough with flour, yeast, lukewarm water, bread cream and salt can be used. Depending on the desired type of bread, other recipes can of course also be used.

First, the ingredients are mixed into a malleable dough. This is followed by kneading the dough, whereby the composition of the dough changes as a result of, inter alia, absorption of water by the flour and reaction with oxygen from the air. A proofing process of, for example, around 40 minutes can then follow. The dough is then beaten and divided into balls. The dough balls then undergo a bulb gray of approximately 30 minutes. This is followed by the shaping or lengthening of the dough pieces. Finally, the proofing follows. The duration of the proofing is normally about 60 minutes, but when applying the invention, the dough pieces are preferably placed in a freezer before the proofing is completed in order to freeze them. The proofing step immediately prior to freezing (including the prior cooling) is preferably at least 60% and preferably at least 70% and preferably at most 90% and preferably at most 80% complete when freezing is started. Said percentages can thereby express, for example, the percentage of the duration of the full speed rise of the volume increase or of the height increase in the brcod can. Depending on the type of bread being prepared, other formats of proofing can also be chosen. For example, pre-proofing can be skipped prior to the final proofing.

Freezing takes place at a temperature that is lowered after the dough has close or has reached the freezing point of the dough. When the dough piece is cooled to this freezing point, a relatively flat temperature is created at an hourly rate from the outer surface to the know of the dough. As a result, the core of the dough has already cooled to close to the freezing point of the dough when outer portions of the dough begin to freeze. Due to the small temperature difference between the core and the outside of the dough piece at the moment that the freezing of the dough starts substantially and the subsequently reduced temperature, the freezing of the dough proceeds from the outside to the inside at a relatively high speed. The explanation of the better bread structure obtained thanks to this method of freezing must probably be sought in a more evenly distributed moment of freezing.

It is noted that it is possible that the dough as a mixture when frozen does not show a freezing point, but a freezing range during which the temperature falls. In practice, however, this freezing process will be short and in this context it is understood to include the concept of freezing point.

Fig. 1 shows an example of the temperature trend of the dough during freezing. The dough piece is frozen in a space in a freezer, which space is cooled by a heat exchanger.

According to this example, the temperatures that are lowered during freezing are the temperature of the heat exchanger and the room temperature in the freezer.

In the diagram shown in Fig. 1, the change in temperature of the dough pieces is indicated by a line D. Three phases can be distinguished therein. Firstly, the phase I of cooling the dough pieces to freezing point, secondly, the phase II during which the dough piece freezes, and thirdly, the phase III in which the frozen dough piece cools to the storage temperature. In phase II the temperature of the dough piece remains approximately constant, unless there is a freezing process, but even then the temperature will only fall very slowly compared to the decrease in phases I and III. The temperature achieved in phase III is preferably lower than -29 ° C. In particular, about -30 ° C is a suitable end temperature. The storage temperature after distribution to the retail trade is at

V

preferably lower than -18 ° C.

According to the method proposed in Fig. 1, the temperature in the space (line L) remains during the phase I, preferably higher than -10 ° C and more preferably higher than -7 ° C. The freezing point of bread dough is at -5 aC to -6 ° C> so that the room temperature when the temperature of the bread dough approaches its freezing point is equal to or only very little lower than the freezing point temperature. The temperature gradient is therefore very flat when the freezing point is reached. To achieve this effect, it is also possible to initially set the room temperature very low and to increase it during cooling of the bread dough, so that the temperature gradient in the dough becomes flatter as the temperature thereof approaches the freezing point.

Upon transition from phase I to phase Π, the room temperature is preferably lowered to less than -25 ° C and preferably less than -29 ° C (in this specific example -30 ° C). Due to this low temperature during the actual freezing of the dough pieces, the freezing front runs relatively quickly from outside to inside through the piece of dough. This allows the dough piece to freeze evenly. In addition, the rapid passage of the freezing front probably has a favorable effect on maintaining a homogeneous water distribution in the dough and on preventing unfavorable crystal formation when the water in the dough freezes.

The room temperature is kept constant after the reduction. This offers the advantage that a maximum heat dissipation is achieved that is possible without the temperature dropping below a value where the degrading effect on the yeast in the dough greatly increases.

Fig. 2 describes a diagram with alternative temperature variations, in which the temperature is also lowered during freezing before the dough temperature has reached the freezing point. This has the effect that during the entire cooling process. phase I the temperature gradient in the dough remains flat, In particular if the dough is frozen before the spreading out and during the cooling process there is still development of carbon dioxide gas, this offers the advantage that the activity and hence the gas development in out-lying layers of the dough does not decrease much sooner than inside layers. A more even structure is hereby obtained and gas accumulations within relatively dense outer layers are prevented.

This effect is realized in a particularly effective manner if, as in this example, the difference between on the one hand the room temperature and the temperature of the heat exchanger and on the other hand the temperature of the dough is kept approximately constant during phase I.

FIG. 3 shows a simplified variant of the proposed method in which the temperature of the room and of the heat exchanger in phase I is gradually lowered and then kept constant until shortly before the end of phase III.

A particular advantage of the proposed method of freezing is that frozen pieces of dough lying against each other exhibit considerably less tendency to stick to each other for up to two hours after they have been taken out of the cooled deep-freeze storage and can therefore still be used for decorating and bake or possibly put back in the freezer storage.

Fig. 4 shows a carousel freezer 1 with a number of dough pieces 2 therein. The dough pieces stand on a circular platform 3, which can rotate in a circular sense 4. It is noted that it is also possible to use a freezer for continuous processing. In it, the dough pieces move through different temperature zones, so that they can each undergo a variation of the temporal temperature over time as shown, for example, in the diagrams discussed above.

In such situations, the circular tray 3 is often designed as a helical path over which the dough pieces 3 move through the freezer 1.

For an even cooling and freezing of the dough pieces, it is advantageous if, as is the case with the invnezer 1 according to the example shown, the dough piece 2 is frozen in at least one air stream 5, 6 and wherein the direction of said air stream 5 , 6 relative to it varies. The air flows 5, 6 are cooled by heat exchangers 7, 8.

With the proposed carousel that rotates in a direction of rotation 4, this is realized because the air flows 5, 6 in a first section 9 of the carousel are directed along with the direction of rotation 4 of the carousel and in another section 10 of the carousel the direction of rotation 4 is directed.

In FIG. 5 shows a holder 11 containing a granular decorative material 13, such as sesame seeds, poppy seeds or wheat flakes. Above the holder 11 there is a piece of dough 2 which is held upside down and which can be moved back and forth in directions indicated by a double arrow 12.

By exposing at least one upper part 14 of the dough piece 2 to moisture-containing air after freezing, this can be, for example, ambient air, moisture from the air condenses against the dough piece 2 and the dough piece 2 becomes sticky. It is also possible for this purpose to moisten the dough piece with, for example, a sprayer. By subsequently bringing the dough piece 2 into contact with the koirel-shaped decoration material 13, particles of the granular decoration material 13 adhere to the dough piece and a decoration is obtained on the top side 14 of the dough piece 2. These operations are preferably carried out immediately before the bread is baked. This makes it possible to determine in a very simple and rapid manner directly before baking the bread the type of decoration which the bread must be provided with. Thus, with a very short response time, it is possible to respond to fluctuations in the demand for bread with different decorations. It is noted that this method of decorating can also be advantageously applied in a method in which freezing is carried out differently than that proposed in this patent application.

Applying the Icorrel-shaped decoration material is preferably effected, as in the example shown, by pressing the dough piece 2 from above against the granular material 13. The grains are then pressed firmly against the surface 14 of the dough piece 2 to be decorated.

Because, with the proposed freezing method, the frozen dough pieces show little tendency to stick together, even after they have been outside the frozen storage for a longer period of time, it is also possible to place pieces of dough decorated with granules back into the frozen storage. Reduction of the shelf life and quality is thereby particularly limited if the application of the grains takes place without the dough pieces being thawed to a significant extent. Dough pieces that have been frozen in the manner proposed above can be kept outside the freezer at room temperature for up to about two hours. exposed and subsequently further frozen, without substantial loss of quality.

Starting from a frozen piece of dough - in particular a piece of dough frozen according to a method as proposed - the aim is then to obtain a bread with a crispy crust and an evenly distributed, fine structure of cavities within the crust and without sticky portions. To this end, during the baking of a loaf of bread under the dough piece prior to baking, to wholly or at least substantially defrost - and possibly without any defrosting of the dough piece - the baking time is divided into at least two phases. These are. a heating phase in which the oven temperature in the oven space is between 110 ° C and 160 ° C and a confection phase after the heating phase, during which confection phase the oven temperature is substantially higher than during the heating phase. It is noted that freezing at a temperature that is lowered after the dough has closely approached or has reached its point makes a particularly effective contribution to a good bread structure if the baking is performed as described above and below, but the proposed method of freezing also yields a better bread structure and better handling of partially thawed dough pieces if the dough piece is baked in a different, for example, per se known manner.

Table 1 shows a number of examples of the prematured method of baking bread from frozen dough pieces. Depending on the type of bread, the composition of the dough and the size of the dough piece, the temperatures and the oven may vary depending on the duration of the different phases.

To promote one. deep penetrating heating preferably covers the first part of the heating phase at least 1% of the baking time. For this purpose it is favorable if the minimum oven temperature during the first part of the heating phase is at least 140 ° C and preferably at least 10 ° C.

On the other hand, the dough piece should not be over-heated during the heating-up phase. To that end, the duration of the first part of the heating-up phase preferably comprises at most 10% of the baking time. It is furthermore advantageous for this purpose if the temperature during the first part of the heating-up phase is at most 180 ° C and preferably at most 170 ° C. It is furthermore advantageous for this purpose if the lowest oven temperature during a second part of the heating phase is at least 15 ° C and preferably at least 20 ° C lower than the (preferably highest) oven temperature that during the first part of the heating-up phase, wherein the second part of the heating-up phase covers at least 10% of the baking time. According to this example, the first part of the heating phase is followed by a transition phase during which the oven temperature falls to a temperature which is subsequently kept constant during the second part of the heating phase.

To achieve a uniform temperature distribution during the second part of the heating-up phase, it is advantageous if the second part of the heating-up phase covers at least 10% of the baking time. For this purpose it is furthermore advantageous if the lowest oven temperature during the second part of the heating-up phase is at least 120 ° C and preferably at least 130 ° C.

On the other hand, a too long second part of the heating phase can lead to too much drying out of the dough piece and yarn with little crust formation. Therefore, the second part of the heat-up phase preferably covers at most 30% of the baking time. It is also advantageous for this purpose if the highest oven temperature during the heating phase is at most 155 ° C.

To promote crunchy and crispiness of the crust in combination with a soft core of the bread, the confection phase preferably covers at least 60% of the baking time. On the other hand, in order to achieve a uniform structure of the bread with evenly and finely divided cavities, such as with bread being baked without the dough pieces being deep-frozen, it is advantageous if the confection phase covers up to 90% of the baking time.

The oven temperature during the confection phase strongly depends on the type of bread * as the examples in Table 1 illustrate. For crust formation and crispiness of the crust, the lowest oven temperature during the confection phase is preferably at least 150 ° C and preferably at least 155 ° C.

Due to the heating of the dough piece during the warming-up phase, the oven temperature during the confection phase may be slightly lower than usual. The highest oven temperature during the ready-to-wear phase is preferably at most 220 ° C and preferably at most 210 ° C. Thereby it is in the case of. Baking unfilled bread advantageously, dividing the confection phase into three sections with rising temperatures.

In order to shorten the baking time, the dough piece can also be heated during the confection phase by introducing a microwave field into the oven space. By performing this (preferably exclusively) during the confection phase or at least after completion of half or preferably three-quarters of the heating-up phase the addition of the micro-wave field to heating the dough piece mainly has an effect on heating the relatively large water-containing core of the dough stub, the temperature of which remains relatively far and long when baking bread from deep-frozen dough pieces. The total baking time is then in most cases shorter than when baking bread without additional heating by a micro wave field. For the first example in Table 1, a baking time of a total of approximately 35 minutes is sufficient. The additional heating effect on the core of the dough piece, which is relatively strongly lagging in temperature and which is relatively strongly lagging in temperature in the case of a deep-frozen state, is also achieved if the baking is carried out with a different temperature variation than previously proposed in a more general sense and additional heating is proposed. started after a short area of water has become relatively aria of water relative to the core in the oven. However, the risk that the additional heating results in the formation of local, relatively large cavities is then greater.

In order to prevent bread from drying out during the warming-up phase and to promote effective heat transfer to the coldest parts of the dough piece, according to the described example, steam is introduced into the oven space during the heating-up phase. time insertion of a "blast" of steam.

The measure applied according to the examples described in Table 1, that a fume damper of the oven is kept closed during the heating-up phase, is also advantageous for preventing the dough piece from drying out. In order to subsequently promote crust formation and crispiness of the crust, in the methods according to the examples shown in Table 1, the steam valve is opened during at least one final part of the ready-to-wear phase.

Figures 6 and 7 show alternative temperature changes during baking. According to the method shown in FIG. 6, the temperature during a first initial part of the warm-up phase is more than 155 ° C and decreases to about 135 ° C for a subsequent part of the warm-up phase and then gradually rises to then continue to rise further during the efefe phase. According to the method shown in FIG. 7, the initial temperature is 150 ° C and the oven temperature drops during the first part of the heating phase to approximately 140 ° C and then rises again to more than 150 aC. The heating of the dough piece by generating a microwave field in the oven space takes place for the first time during the second part of the heating phase. To compensate for the action of the microwave field, the oven temperature drops again to 14 ° C during the confection phase and baking takes about 8 minutes less than without by-heating through a microwave field.

Claims (27)

Method for baking a bread, such as a bread of 400-800 g, in an oven space, starting from a frozen dough piece (2) without completely defrosting the dough piece prior to baking, characterized in that the baking takes place during a baking time divided into at least two phases, comprising: a heating phase covering at least 10% of the baking time, during which heating phase the oven temperature is between 110 ° C and 160 ° C, and a confection phase after said heating phase, during which confection phase the oven temperature is substantially higher than the oven temperature during the heating-up phase. A method according to claim 1, wherein the heating-up phase comprises at most 40% of the baking time. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a first minimum oven temperature prevails in the oven space during a first part of the heating phase; wherein during a subsequent portion of the heating phase the oven temperature is substantially lower than said first minimum oven temperature and falls to a second minimum temperature, and wherein during the confection phase the oven temperature is substantially higher than said second minimum temperature. The method of claim 3, wherein the second portion of the heating-up phase covers at least 10% of the baking time. A method according to claim 3 or 4, wherein the second part of the heating-up phase covers up to 30% of the baking time. A method according to any one of the preceding claims 3-5, wherein the oven temperature during the second part of the heating phase is at least 15 ° C and preferably at least 20 ° C lower than the highest temperature during the previous part of. the heating-up phase, wherein said second part of the heating-up phase covers at least 10% of the batiyd. 7. Method according to a. according to the preceding claims, wherein the confection phase covers at least 60¾ of the baking time. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the confection phase covers at most 90% of the baking time. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the lowest oven temperature during the heating-up phase is at least 120 ° C and preferably at least 130 ° C. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the highest oven temperature during the heating phase is at most 155 ° C. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the lowest oven temperature during the clothing phase is at least 150 ° C and preferably at least 155 ° C. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the highest oven temperature during the clothing phase is at most 220 ° C and preferably at most 210 ° C. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the dough piece is co-heated during the confection phase by the action of a microwave field in the oven space. A method according to claim 13, wherein the co-heating of the dough piece by means of a microwave field in the oven space is only effected after at least 50% and preferably at least 75% of the duration of the heating-up phase has elapsed. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein steam is introduced into the oven cavity during the heating-up phase. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein during the heating-up phase a fume valve of the oven is kept closed and the fume valve is open during at least one last part of the confection phase. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, further comprising: preparing a frozen dough piece (2) comprising: mixing ingredients including flour, yeast and water into a malleable dough, kneading the dough, allowing fermentation of dough, forming the dough into the dough piece (2) and freezing the dough piece (2) at a temperature that is lowered after the temperature of the dough piece (2) has close or has reached its freezing point. A method according to claim 17, wherein freezing takes place in a space in a freezer (1), and wherein the temperature that is lowered during freezing is the room temperature in the freezer (1). A method according to claim 17 or 18, wherein said temperature is kept constant after said reduction thereof. A method according to any one of claims 17-19, wherein said temperature is lowered at least once during freezing before the dough temperature has reached the freezing point. A method according to claim 20, wherein the difference between said temperature and the dough temperature is kept constant during cooling of the dough to the freezing point. A method according to claim 19 and optionally another of claims 17-21, wherein the room temperature in the freezer (1) for said reduction is higher than -10 ° C and preferably higher than -7 ° C. A method according to any one of claims 17-22, wherein the dough piece (2) is frozen in at least one air stream (5,6) and wherein the direction of said air stream (5,6) varies with respect to said dough piece (2) . A method according to claim 23, wherein the dough piece (2) is frozen in a carousel (3) rotating in a direction of rotation, and wherein said air flow (5,6) in a first section of said carousel (3) turns direction of the carousel (3) is also directed and is directed in another section of said caousousel (3) against said direction of rotation. The method of any one of claims 17 to 23, wherein the fermenting is a proofing immediately prior to. freezing comprises which proofing process is completed for at least 60% and preferably for at least 70% as well as for at most 90% and preferably for at most 80% when the freezing is started. A method according to any one of claims 17-25, further comprising after freezing exposing at least an upper portion of the dough piece (2) to moist air, wherein moisture from the air condenses against the dough piece (2) and subsequently applying granular decorative material (13) on at least said upper part of the dough piece (2). A method according to claim 26, wherein applying the granular decorative material (13) is by pressing the dough piece (2) from above against said granular material.