Dairy Ingredients for Food Processing

Dairy Ingredients in Bakery, Snacks, Sauces, Dressings, Processed Meats, Functional Foods 485

granola bars, dried fruit, fruit leather prod-

ucts, hot dogs and other meat snacks, yogurt,

cereal tubes with cheese fi lling, cheese crack-

ers, cracker sandwiches with cheese fi lling,

cheese potatoes, cheese cubes, etc. Dairy

ingredients form an integral part of many

snack items.

The primary application of dairy - derived

ingredients in snack foods is for seasonings,

because they enhance color and fl avor. Dry

cheese and whey powder blends used as sea-

sonings are signifi cant sales items for ingre-

dient suppliers. Snack foods comprise four

major categories: salted, baked, confection-

ery, and specialty. The confectionery prod-

ucts are discussed in Chapter 19.

Snack Manufacture and Application

of Cheese Powders

The manufacturing processes and incorpora-

tion of cheese seasonings in snacks are dis-

cussed below.

Cheese Crackers

Cheese crackers usually are made from fer-

mented dough of acidic character to augment

cheese fl avor. The formulation of cheese

crackers resembles that of soda crackers

except that the fat and moisture of cheese

must be accounted for. Comminuted natural

cheese (blend of cheddar, Swiss, blue and

other cheeses), enzyme - modifi ed cheese, or

a cheese substitute is incorporated into the

dough along with 0.25% paprika and a little

cayenne pepper for color and fl avor attri-

butes. Sometimes a premix of ground cheese

and shortening is held in the fermentation

room for 24 hours and incorporated into the

fermented dough (Bawa and Sidhu, 2003 ).

The dough is baked and salted.

Potato Chips

For the manufacture of potato chips, washed

potatoes are destoned and peeled, cut into a

crumbs are deposited at the bottom. Cream
cheese and sugar are blended at low speed for
three to four minutes. The eggs and sour
cream are then mixed in at low speed for two
to three minutes and the mixture is poured
into the pan. The pan is baked at 300 ° F
(149 ° C) for one hour and allowed to cool in
the oven without heat for another hour. The
cake is then cooled on a cooling rack for an
additional hour, followed by refrigerated
storage overnight. A suggested formulation
for cheesecake is given in Table 18.7.

Lime Pie Filling

The starting material of lime pie fi lling is
sweetened condensed milk, which is acidi-
fi ed at 4 ° C to 10 ° C (40 ° F to 50 ° F) with lime
or lemon juice to pH 4.6. It is then poured
into a pie crust and allowed to thicken. It is
stored under refrigeration after the required
viscosity is obtained.

Snack Foods

Snack foods may be described as foods con-
sumed at parties and in between meals
(Altomare, Kettunen, and Cante, 1992 ). Their
fl avor may be savory or sweet. Snacks
include a wide array of foods including
cookies, candy, cakes, pies, pizza, potato
chips, tortilla chips, corn puffs and curls,
nuts, pretzels, popcorn, puffed cereals,

Table 18.7. Suggested formulation for standard
cheesecake.

Ingredient % by weight Baker ’ s %

Cream cheese 55.2 100

Sugar 21.2 38.5

Whole egg 12.7 23.1

Sour cream 9.4 17

Graham cracker

crumbs

1.2 2.2

Vanilla 0.3 0.5

Total 100 181.3

Adapted from American Institute of Baking (2010).
https://secure.aibonline.org/subscribers/ ... /.etins/
v20iss0.4.text. Accessed on October 11, 2010