GB2378886A

GB2378886A - Snack food

Info

Publication number: GB2378886A
Application number: GB0120336A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Martin Peter Read; Brian John Smith; Richard Fisk; Ruth Sisley
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2001-08-22
Filing date: 2001-08-22
Publication date: 2003-02-26
Anticipated expiration: 2021-08-22
Also published as: GB2378886B; GB0120336D0

Abstract

A snack food is prepared using a combination of potato and baked bread made from wheat flour. The bread used may be yeast or chemically leavened. The potato may be potato granules or flakes or powder or fresh cooked potato. The two principal ingredients may also be mixed with other texturising and flavouring ingredients. The mixtures are formed into a plastic dough by the addition of water or other wetting ingredients and mixed in conventional dough mixers. The dough is formed in depositors or sheeters and cutters into suitable snack food sized pieces of adequate thickness and diameter and then dried, to give a crisp texture and long shelf life, by a number of alternative drying techniques including air drying and frying in vegetable oils. The final snack food may be coated with flavours and seasoning and vegetable oils to create taste and texture appeal.

Description

Inventors : Martin Peter Read Rudyard Cottage Queenwood Road Brou ton Hampshire S020 8BP Brian John Smith Yew Tree Cottage Ingleby Derby DE73 IHW Richard Fisk 2 St Judes Way Hornmglow Burton-upon-Trent Staffordshire DE130LR Ruth Sisley Nook Farm Main Street Norton-Juxta-Twycross ATHERSTONE Warwickshire CV9 3QA Wheat Bread and Potato Snack Food This invention relates to a novel foodstuff made principally using potato and baked bread made from wheat and new snack foods derived therefrom.

Typically this class of foodstuff includes well known Items such as fried potato crisps, tortilla chips, reformed potato snacks, snack and cocktail biscuits and extruded and expanded corn and wheat snack products There are many types and variations and the class of food continues to evolve and develop This invention IS such a development but combines elements and processes which provide a foodstuff which has properties which have not existed before from materials which have not been combined in this way before and represent true novelty in this class of food Combinations of potato and wheat flour have been used in snack foods and some combinations have been patented but the novelty in this case is the use of pre-baked bread with potato as the major components of this novel foodstuff.

This invention IS made by combining potato materials Including dried flakes or granules or fresh cooked potato with pieces of baked wheat bread together with other minor ingredients The mixture is made with sufficient added water or source of moisture or other wetting matter or ingredients including but not restricted to fats and oils to enable production of a mixed plastic dough This mixture or dough is then converted into snack food sized pieces by sheeting or forming or cutting or any combination of these in any order. The pieces or sheets are then dned by any convenient means to produce pieces of snack food with unique properties of taste and texture. Drying may be by conventional ovens or driers or by microwave, dl-electnc or infra-red devices or any combination of these Drying may also be achieved by frying in hot oil According to the invention the potato material is dried potato granules or flakes or fresh cooked mashed potato The materials are well known and readily commercially available. Cooked fresh potato may be prepared and comminuted or mashed by any convenient means. The preferred grades of potato flakes or granules are those which are already well established for snack food manufacture for the production of potato only shaped pieces, often fried. These granules or flakes should be light in colour with a good clean potato flavour and no off-flavours. Fresh potatoes, if used, should be of any variety and quality suitable for making snack foods Typically the bread used in this invention is a conventional bread recipe made with wheat flour and may be yeast or chemically raised with soft Internal crumb structure and a crusty exterior The bread may be made in any convenient manner known in bread making and can include tinned bread, thin flat breads like pizza crust, bread baked from continuously extruded dough or in continuous sheets but will typically have a final moisture content in the range 30-50% The apparatus and process for producing the bread can be any employed already in the baking industry A feature of the process may be the ageing or staling of the bread for a period of typically between 4 to 96 hours and this period will depend on the characteristics required in the final product and the limitations of the machinery used for the next stage of the process to break up the bread into smaller pieces.

The bread, preferably staled, is broken into smaller pieces ranging in size, neglecting the fine material which will also be produced by the breaking process, typically from 2mm to 15mm, but this may go as high as 25-50mm in some processes.

According to the present invention the combination of potato and baked bread with or without other ingredients will produce a novel food material which, after a sheeting or forming and drying process, may be a thin snack food material with the characteristic flavours of wheat and potato products but with snap and texture properties of well known snack foods like potato crisps.

The thickness, size and shape of the final snack can be according to the producer's preference.

According to the invention there is a process of mixing of the potato and bread dough which may be undertaken In any convenient industrial food mixer capable of handling the materials described Typically the broken bread pieces material is in the ratio, on a dry solids basis, of from 20% to 80% by weight of dry potato solids and the potato granules or flakes or of cooked potato provides an amount of potato solids equivalent to 80% to 20% by weight of baked bread solids Typically the mixture is mixed firstly in the dry stage and then with the addition of water or other wetting materials which can be In the range of 10-50% of the dry weights of the potato and bread materials According to the invention other materials which may be added In the preliminary dry mixing stage or subsequently include texture modifying materials such as food starches or modified starches or wheat gluten or aerating ingredients such as sodium bicarbonate or other chemical sources of carbon dioxide or other gases or active live yeast also may be also be added. Flavour adjuncts such as spices, herbs, flavourings, flavour enhancers, such as monosodium glutamate can be added to the mixture possibly with other texture modifiers such as vegetable oils, animal fats or permitted food emulsifiers or stabilisers.

The entire mixture or dough is mixed sufficiently to produce an homogenous consistent material which in some Instances may be mixed with sufficient energy to assist in further development of wheat gluten structures in the mixture which can Influence the final texture properties of the finished product. A dough mixing may take typically from about 1 or 2 minutes up to 10 or-15 minutes depending on the apparatus used and the amount of energy imparted into the dough mixture According to the invention after mixing, the dough may be transferred to an apparatus for providing a convenient sheet or pieces of the novel food material from which may be formed cut or formed pieces of the desired, weight and thickness to provide the characteristics of the final product after the final drying or baking process Typically the thickness of the sheets may be between about 1mm and 10mm and the pieces cut can be any size although typical, convenient bite-sized products will be produced if the cut size is, in its maximum dimension, between 10mm and 50mm.

Alternative means of converting the dough into snack food sized pieces could Include depositing machines, wire cutting machines, forming machines already well known in the food industry for portioning of food materials for processing and consumption.

According to the invented process the finally formed pieces of novel snack food material may be transferred to the heating and drying zone of any suitable apparatus capable of providing air temperatures in excess of say 600 centigrade and up to possibly 2100 centigrade.

The drying out of the snack food pieces to provide the crisp texture and long shelf life and to develop flavour and colour may be carried out at any temperature or temperature profile in the given range to balance the efficient drying of the product to the desired degree without burning however achieving the desired colour and flavour.

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Drying means may include methods such as forced air circulation, dielectric heating, microwave heating and direct flame radiant heating and any other drying and/or baking system- In another presentation of the invention an alternative to the heating and drying process described above may be provided by the shaped or formed pieces of dough being fned in suitable food oils or fats to remove moisture and to develop crisp texture and appetising taste and appearance In another presentation of the invention a combination of heating and drying processes together with frying processes may be applied to develop desired product texture and taste characteristics in any order According to the invented process the final moisture content of the ready to consume product should be in the range 0.5% to 6% of the weight of the final product.

According to the Invented process following the baking process seasonings, flavours, vegetable oil and other garnishes and coatings may be applied to enhance taste flavour, colour and appeal as desired.

Examples Example 1 A novel potato and bread snack resembling the format of a thin crisp snack biscuit may be made as follows.

Bread is made by mixing in a high speed mixer white wheat flour, water at about 60% of the flour weight and yeast about 1 % to 2% of the flour weight and salt about 2% of the flour weight and as an oxidising improver ascorbic acid at about 200mg per kg of flour. The dough is divided into 1 kg pieces, allowed to rest for 10 minutes and then moulded and placed into baking tins. Proving in a warm atmosphere takes about 30 to 40 minutes. The bread is then baked at about 2000C for 30 to 40 minutes before turning out of the tins and allowing to cool on racks. The bread is allowed to stale at ambient temperatures for 24 hours.

The staled bread is chopped in a breadcrumb making machine into pieces ranging mostly from 1 mm to 10 mm in maximum dimension. These pieces are mixed with dried potato granules in the ratio 60% by weight of bread pieces and 40% of potato granules. In addition texture improvers maize starch is added at the rate of 5% of the total dry mix and vegetable oil at 3% of the dry mix. To this mixture is added cold water at the rate of 35% of the total weight of the dry mixture and the combination is given a thorough mixing in a spiral dough mixer.

The plastic dough is then placed in the hopper of a commercial dough sheeting machine and by a series of rolls produces a continuous sheet of 1-2mm thickness which is conveyed to automatic machine to cut 40mm discs from the dough. The cut discs then conveyed through a forced air circulation drying oven at air on temperature of about 1200C for 20 to 35 minutes to give a final product when cool with a moisture less than 4% and with a crisp texture. The dried discs are then passed through fat spray and powder flavour applicators to provide a characteristic taste and texture appeal to most consumers.

Example 2 A novel potato and bread snack resembling the format of a potato crisp may be made as follows- A chemically leavened bread is made by mixing a dough of white wheat flour with water at about 60% of the flour weight and including bicarbonate of soda or other chemical leavening and about 1 % salt The mixture is mixed quickly in a conventional bread dough mixer such a grid-lap or spiral mixer and the dough thus formed is forced from the hopper of a commercial dough extruder as a continuous sheet of about 25mm thickness onto the steel band of a conveyonsed baking oven The dough passes through the oven at about 2000C for 25 to 30 minutes where it rises to a thickness of more than 50mm and then onto a cooling belt for 1 to 2 hours Then as in Example 1 above the cooled bread IS broken into smaller pieces and then mixed into a dough with potato, water and other texture and flavour Ingredients.

The dough is put Into the hopper of a commercial wire cut depositing machine and rough textured discs of about 35 to 45mm diameter are extruded and cut from the machine directly into hot vegetable frying oil at about 375 C for 2 to 3 minutes.

The fried discs with a residual moisture content of less than 3% are, while hot, coated with powdered flavours and seasonings and are then ready for consumption as a novel snack food.

Claims

Claims : 1 A novel food material made by combining a dried or fresh cooked potato material with pieces of baked wheat bread, which may have been staled, with, on a moisture free basis, from 20% to 80% and preferably 30% to 50% of dried potato solids and from 80% to 20%, preferably 50% to 30% dried wheat bread solids 2 A novel food material as In claim 1 with additional ingredients as texture aids and flavour and seasoning ingredients and fats and oils which may comprise between 25% and 5%, and preferably between 20% and 8% of the total dry solids of the complete mix 3 A novel food material as in claim 1 or 2 with additional ingredients as aerating agents which may comprise up to 5%, but preferably between 0.5% and
2.5% of the total dry solids of the complete mix 4 A novel food material as In any of the above claims with added water or other material to provide plasticity, cohesiveness and mouldability to enable a dough to

be formed by mixing I% il I I I%. A Li I 1 11^11 ll 5 A process to produce a novel snack food from the novel food materials as In Claims 1 to 4 comprising the steps of a) Preparing baked bread for use In mixtures with composition of Claims 1 to 3 b) Preparing cooked mashed potato if fresh potato IS to be used In mixtures with composition of Claims 1 to 3 c) Preparing a dough by mixing the materials as In Claim 4 d) Forming the dough by extruding or sheeting or depositing or any other convenient means to provide pieces of the dough of thickness and diameter to provide the form and shape of the final snack food e) Drying the dough pieces by hot air drying, dielectric heating, microwave heating, hot oil frying or any other convenient means to reduce the moisture of the pieces to not more than 6% and preferably between 3% and 0.5% and to develop a texture and colour which is appetising.

Applying to the dry pieces a coating of flavour and seasoning with or without an applied vegetable oil coating to provide a complete ready to eat snack food