Dairy Ingredients for Food Processing

Dairy Ingredients in Bakery, Snacks, Sauces, Dressings, Processed Meats, Functional Foods 493

tested as a topping on potatoes or nachos or

in macaroni and cheese and other pasta prod-

ucts. Occasionally, its fl avor performance is

tested in cheese sandwiches. Desirable attri-

butes of appearance include uniformity of

color, shiny appearance, and smooth tex-

ture. Defects include dull appearance, streak-

ing, specks, and rough texture. The fl avor

should be fresh and clean with no detectable

canned, bitter, salty, or sweet fl avor notes.

The texture should be smooth and creamy

with no perception of graininess, lumpiness,

or gumminess.

Dairy Salad Dressings

Spoonable and pourable dairy dressings dis-

playing rich creamy mouth feel are based on

buttermilk or cultured milk. Regular salad

dressings contain 30% to 80% fat, and may-

onnaise is 65% fat. Dairy - based dressings

may contain 0% to 12% fat. They must to be

refrigerated in storage distribution and use.

Flavors include blue cheese, creamy thou-

sand island, avocado, creamy garlic, creamy

Italian, and creamy French.

Production of the dairy base involves for-

mulation of the base preparation similar to

that of cultured buttermilk. Stabilizers and

emulsifi ers are added to the cultured base,

followed by pasteurization and homogeniza-

tion. The base is then blended with salad

bases to obtain the dressing.

Figure 18.3 shows a process fl ow sheet for

dairy salad dressing manufacture.

Processed Meat Products

Dairy ingredients are used as extenders in

meat products. During manufacture of pro-

cessed meat products, a key objective is the

formation of a stable heat - induced gel (emul-

sion) in which water and fat are bound to

yield a palatable and attractive product. A

meat emulsion is a multi - phase system. Solid

fat particles, muscle fi bers, and connective

tissue are dispersed in the aqueous phase

coolers, and aseptic fi ller for No. 10 cans or
appropriate pouch - fi lling equipment.
Cheese sauce ingredients are mixed in the
high - shear blender and the slurry is pumped
into surge tanks equipped with agitation and
temperature control. The slurry is fed into the
balance tank where its temperature is raised
to 43.3 ° C (110 ° F) with a heat exchanger
using energy from the condensate from the
heaters. The warm slurry is then homoge-
nized and preheated to 76.7 ° C (170 ° F) by the
tubular unit prior to entry into scraped -
surface heaters and the holding tube. Here,
the sauce is heated quickly to 138.9 ° C
(282 ° F) and held for 21 seconds to achieve
commercial sterility. Cooling of the sterilized
product to 37.8 ° C (100 ° F) is achieved quickly
by running the sterilized sauce through 12
scraped - surface coolers. The fl avor quality is
controlled by precise time - temperature
control during heating and cooling cycles.
The cheese sauce is dispensed and sealed
aseptically in appropriate containers.
The canned product is held for 14 days at
the manufacturing plant for quality control
clearance. Samples drawn from manufactur-
ing runs are incubated at 37.8 ° C (100 ° F) for
two weeks. Quality checks include integrity
of can seams and vacuum, pH, color, stan-
dard plate count, and thermoduric bacteria
count. Aseptically processed cheese sauces
require no refrigerated storage until they are
opened. After opening, the sauce should not
be held longer than 10 days at 4.4 ° C (40 ° F).
The sauce is pumpable and provides good
portion control in a fast food operation.
Versatility of fl avor and thick or thin body
attributes can be formulated. A skin may
form on the surface of cheese sauce that is
exposed to air or steam. This can be avoided
by covering the can with aluminum foil and
stirring occasionally.

Quality Evaluation

Sensory evaluation of cheese sauce is con-
ducted in the as - is form. Sauces also are