HK1167573A - Microwave cake flour composition and method of making cakes with this composition - Google Patents

Description

Microwave cake powder composition and method for making cake by using same

Technical Field

The present invention generally relates to a cake mix composition and a method of making cake using the same. In particular, the present invention relates to a cake mix composition suitable for use in a microwave oven and a method of making a cake in a microwave oven.

Background

Today consumers of baked confectionery desire to be able to make high quality confectionery in less time. One of the main reasons why microwave ovens are popular in home life is their time saving capability. Sponge cake is a popular dessert. Sponge cake made in a microwave oven is a particularly popular snack food. The sponge cake batter may be sold directly, for example, in cups containing cupcakes, and stored in a refrigerator until baked in a microwave oven. Such products are popular with consumers and are convenient to use.

Generally, cereal-based food products, such as bread and cakes, baked using a microwave oven do not taste good (U.S. application No. 20020061353). The texture and volume of microwave prepared sponge cakes is often unsatisfactory. It is believed that the viscoelastic and hard texture of such food products, like rubber, is primarily caused by protein denaturation of the gluten in the raw flour (U.S. patent No. 6,884,448).

The skilled person has adopted various methods to avoid these problems caused by gluten, which include the use of natural cereal flours with a low gluten content or the substitution of cereal flours with alternatives that do not contain gluten. Us patent 6,884,448 discloses a sponge cake premix for making sponge cakes. The main component of the pre-mixed powder is a cereal flour containing starch and pregelatinized starch. This pre-mixed flour does not contain any flour or only very small amounts of flour.

Chinese patent CN 1288986C discloses a cake flour suitable for microwave oven, which is made from wheat flour with low gluten content, wherein starch or modified starch is not added separately.

Chinese patent CN 101720797a discloses a cereal powder composition prepared by mixing the following components: (A) 30-75 parts of low-gluten powder; (B) 10-30 parts of at least one selected from medium gluten flour, medium gluten flour and high gluten flour, or 0.5-4 parts of wheat protein; (C) 15-40 parts of esterified starch or etherified starch. The cereal flour composition is suitable for baking pastry in a conventional manner rather than by microwave oven.

Chinese patent CN101744015A discloses a grain powder composition comprising: (a) wheat flour; (b) gelatinized modified starch; (c) wheat protein for baking pastries in a conventional manner.

There remains a need in the art for microwaveable cakes that have a light, soft texture, a fine, uniform texture, a voluminous appearance, and a moist, mouth-soluble feel.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides in a first aspect a microwave cake flour composition comprising wheat flour and at least one pregelatinized modified starch

In some embodiments, the at least one pregelatinized modified starch is selected from the group consisting of esterified starches and etherified starches. The esterified starch is selected from, for example, acetylated starch, phosphate modified starch, succinate modified starch, acetate modified starch, nitrate modified starch, xanthate modified starch, and combinations thereof. Etherified starches, for example, selected from carboxymethylated starches, carboxyethylated starches, hydroxypropylated starches, hydroxyethylated starches, and combinations thereof.

In some preferred embodiments, the at least one pregelatinized, destructurized starch is subjected to further crosslinking, such as, for example, phosphoric acid crosslinking or adipic acid crosslinking. The pregelatinized modified starch can be selected from the group consisting of hydroxypropyl distarch phosphate, hydroxypropyl starch, acetylated distarch adipate, and combinations thereof.

The amount of the at least one pregelatinized modified starch can be from 10% to 80%, from 20% to 70%, from 30% to 60%, or from 40% to 50% by weight, based on the weight of the wheat flour. The wheat flour used in the present invention may be selected from the group consisting of weak flour, medium flour, or a combination thereof, with medium flour being preferred.

The amount of wheat flour may be 10-50%, 15-45%, or 20-40% by weight based on the weight of the microwave cake flour composition.

In some preferred embodiments, the microwave cake mix composition of the present invention further comprises baking powder comprising sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, calcium dihydrogen phosphate and tartaric acid, wherein the amount of calcium bicarbonate may be 30-65 parts by weight; the amount of malic acid may be 1 to 25 parts by weight; the amount of dicalcium pyrophosphate may be 1 to 25 parts by weight; the amount of monocalcium phosphate may be 1 to 20 parts by weight; the amount of tartaric acid may be 1 to 15 parts by weight. The amount of baking powder may be 5-40% by weight based on the weight of wheat flour in the microwave cake powder composition.

In a second aspect, the present invention provides a baking powder composition comprising sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, calcium dihydrogen phosphate and tartaric acid. In some embodiments, the amount of calcium bicarbonate can be 30 to 65 parts by weight; the amount of malic acid may be 1 to 25 parts by weight; the amount of dicalcium pyrophosphate may be 1 to 25 parts by weight; the amount of monocalcium phosphate may be 1 to 20 parts by weight; the amount of tartaric acid may be 1 to 15 parts by weight.

In a third aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of making a cake comprising the steps of: adding a heat-coagulable protein to the microwave cake mix composition of the present invention and mixing thoroughly to obtain a dough, and heating the dough in a microwave oven.

Also provided according to the invention are doughs and cakes comprising the microwave cake flour compositions described herein, cake premix compositions comprising the baking powder described herein, and cakes made according to the methods of the invention.

Detailed Description

Wheat flour

Wheat flour can be classified into weak flour, medium flour and high flour according to protein content. Wheat flour has gluten-forming proteins which form gluten when mixed with water. This gluten structure provides extensibility, elasticity and the ability to retain gases in the baked food. The amount of gluten is proportional to the protein content of the flour. The low gluten flour made from soft wheat has low protein content, so the gluten strength is low. The protein content of the gluten meal will generally not exceed 10.0% by dry weight; the gluten content is less than 24% calculated on wet weight. The protein content of hard wheat as a raw material for the high gluten flour is usually not less than 12.2% by dry weight; the gluten content is not lower than 30% calculated by wet weight. The protein content and gluten content of medium gluten meal are both between that of low gluten meal and high gluten meal, for example, 9% to 11% (by dry weight) and 24% to 30% (by wet weight) respectively. The protein content and gluten content of the medium gluten flour are between those of the medium gluten flour and the high gluten flour. This characteristic of gluten strength has a great influence on the baking quality of foods made from flour. In order to make the cake soft and fine, the cake is usually made of low-gluten flour.

Unlike the traditional preference for weak flours, a large amount of medium or plain flour can be used in the present invention. Compared with low gluten flour, the protein content of medium gluten flour is higher, and the protein is beneficial to human health, so the medium gluten flour is a better choice from the nutrition point of view. The inventors of the present invention have surprisingly found that cakes made from microwave cake flour containing medium gluten flour or normal flour and at least one pregelatinized modified starch are fine and soft in texture, reduced in bake shrinkage, attractive in appearance and voluminous.

Although low gluten flour is not a preferred ingredient in the present invention, it may also be added to the microwave cake flour of the present invention, as long as it is added in an amount that does not adversely affect the mouthfeel and appearance of the final cake.

The wheat flour may be present in the microwave cake flour composition in an amount of 10% to 50%, 15% to 45%, or 20% to 40%, for example 10%, 15%, 20%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, or 50% by weight of the microwave cake flour composition.

Modified starch

Modified starch is widely used in the food industry and has the functions of thickening, binding, emulsifying, stabilizing and the like. The term destructured starch as used herein generally refers to chemical denaturation, as distinguished from physical denaturation such as pregelatinization. Modified flours preferably used in the present invention include esterified starches and etherified starches. As the esterified starch, there may be mentioned acetylated starch, phosphate-modified starch, succinate-modified starch, acetate-modified starch, nitrate-modified starch, or xanthate-modified starch. Preferably, the esterified starch is an acetylated starch. As etherified starch, carboxymethylated starch, carboxyethylated starch, hydroxypropylated starch, or hydroxyethylated starch may be mentioned. Preferably, the etherified starch is a hydroxypropylated starch or a carboxymethylated starch. More preferably, the etherified starch is hydroxypropylated starch.

Modified starches (including but not limited to esterified or etherified starches) may have been crosslinked, such as, for example, phosphoric acid crosslinking or adipic acid crosslinking. In the present invention, acetylated phosphate cross-linked, acetylated adipate cross-linked, hydroxypropylated phosphate cross-linked, and hydroxypropylated adipate cross-linked starches are preferable. Furthermore, high crosslinking may be preferred in the present invention.

Modified or cross-linked modified starches may also be pregelatinized. Pregelatinized starch is a physically modified starch that converts to a viscous starch paste upon contact with water at ambient temperature. Techniques for producing pregelatinized starch are well known in the art, and for example, pregelatinized starch can be obtained by adding water to a raw starch such as wheat starch, corn starch, potato starch, or the like, followed by heating, dehydration, and drying. In some embodiments, the pregelatinized modified starches used in the present invention that are both chemically modified and pregelatinized include pregelatinized hydroxypropyl distarch phosphate, pregelatinized hydroxypropyl starch, pregelatinized acetylated distarch adipate, and combinations thereof. In some preferred embodiments, the pregelatinized modified Starch comprises modified Starch 138, modified Starch Baka snake, and/or modified Starch H50, all of which are commercially available from National Starch company.

The amount of pregelatinized modified starch can be from 10% to 80%, 20% to 70%, 30% to 60%, or 40% to 50%, for example, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, or 80% by weight based on the weight of the wheat flour.

Baking powder

The invention also provides baking powder which contains sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, calcium dihydrogen phosphate and tartaric acid. In the baking powder of the present invention, the amount of sodium bicarbonate may be 30 to 65 parts by weight, for example, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, or 65 parts by weight; the amount of malic acid may be 1 to 25 parts by weight, for example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20 or 25 parts by weight; the amount of dicalcium pyrophosphate may be 1 to 25 parts by weight, for example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20 or 25 parts by weight; the amount of monocalcium phosphate may be 1-20 parts by weight, for example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, or 20 parts by weight; the amount of tartaric acid can be 1 to 15 parts by weight, for example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or 15 parts by weight.

The amount of baking powder may be 5% to 40% by weight, such as 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35% or 40% by weight based on the weight of wheat flour in the microwave cake flour composition.

By selecting appropriate fast-reacting and slow-reacting acidic substances, the baking powder of the invention, especially when used in combination with the microwave cake powder of the invention, results in a final baked food with uniform and fine texture.

Other ingredients

In addition to wheat flour and pregelatinized modified starch, other ingredients commonly used in baked confectionery may also be included in the microwave cake flour of the present invention, such as, for example, sweeteners such as sugar, salt, milk powder such as whole milk powder, powdered fats and oils such as vegetable fat powder, flavors such as butter flavor and vanilla flavor, humectants such as trehalose, emulsifiers such as sodium stearoyl lactylate, and the like. The content of other ingredients in the microwave cake mix may be suitably adjusted according to the taste of the consumer.

Cake making using microwave oven

The consumer can use the microwave cake mix composition and microwave oven of the present invention at home to make a cake, such as a sponge cake. The method for making the cake comprises the following steps: to the microwave cake mix composition of the present invention, heat coagulability is added and mixed well to obtain a dough, and then the dough is heated in a microwave oven.

The heat-coagulable protein used in the present invention may be albumin and/or globulin, including but not limited to egg white, casein and whey protein. These heat-coagulable proteins may be obtained from any suitable source, such as eggs, milk, and the like. The content of the thermosetting protein in the microwave cake powder can be appropriately adjusted according to the taste of the consumer. For example, a whole egg weighing between 40 grams and 80 grams may be added to 100 grams of microwave cake mix. In addition, a small amount of water may be appropriately added.

The temperature and time of the microwave heating should be controlled to avoid damaging the soft texture of the cake. The power of the microwave heating may be set in the range of 600 watts to 1000 watts, such as 600, 700, 800, 900, or 1000 watts. The time of the microwave heating may be set in the range of 40 seconds to 2 minutes, for example, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1.2 minutes, 1.4 minutes, 1.6 minutes, 1.8 minutes, or 2 minutes. In a preferred embodiment, the microwave cake mix is microwave heated at 900 watts for 1 minute.

The following examples are provided to illustrate the present invention, but the present invention is not limited to the following examples. All percentages are by weight unless otherwise indicated. All patents, patent applications, and literature references cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many modifications may be made to the invention without departing from its spirit. All such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of this invention as defined in the claims appended hereto.

Examples

Example 1

This example provides a control formulation in which the cake mix composition comprises a conventional baking powder with sodium bicarbonate as the major ingredient. The cake mix composition does not contain any modified starch. The ingredients and contents of the cake mix composition are shown in table 1. The wheat flour used in this and other examples was a medium gluten flour having a wet gluten content of 25.0% ± 2.0. The flavoring agents used in this and other examples include cream flavor and vanilla flavor. Conventional ingredients in the compositions, such as powdered sugar, powdered milk, flavoring agents, and the like, are commercially available from distributors. The control formulations used for the comparative tests in examples 2, 4, 5, 6 were all the control formulations listed in table 1.

TABLE 1

Breaking egg, stirring, adding into the microwave cake powder composition, and mixing. The mixture was heated in a microwave oven with a power of 900 watts for one minute. The final cake has small volume, shrinks after cooling, has dense texture, uneven texture, tastes like rubber or plastic, and tastes dry.

Example 2

The microwave cake mix composition of this example included the baking powder developed by the present inventors in place of commercial baking powder. The microwave cake mix compositions contained the ingredients and amounts shown in table 2.

TABLE 2

The cake making process used in this and the following examples was substantially the same as that used in example 1. Comparative tests were carried out between cakes made with compositions comprising baking powder according to the invention and cakes made with compositions comprising conventional baking powder. The results of the comparative tests show that compared with the control sample, the cake made by using the baking powder of the invention has larger volume, more uniform texture structure and smoother surface.

Example 3

This example reduces the dosage of the acidic substance compared to example 2, and the volume of the two cakes obtained is substantially the same.

TABLE 3

Trehalose	3	3
			Sodium bicarbonate	2	2
Malic acid	0.1	0.5
			Disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate	0.1	0.5
Calcium dihydrogen phosphate	0.4	0.4
			Tartaric acid	0.3	0.3
Salt (salt)	0.3	0.3
			SSL	0.2	0.2

Example 4

The microwave cake mix composition of this example contained two modified starches.

TABLE 4

The cake obtained with the control formulation was small in volume and shrunk after cooling. In contrast, the test cake retained a good appearance.

Example 5

Formula 5 added a modified starch to maintain moisture and provide better mouthfeel than the control. The control sample had a moisture content of 27.22% and the test sample had a moisture content of 30.65%, with a 12.60% increase in the ability to retain moisture.

TABLE 5

Example 6

This example illustrates an improved recipe that takes into account all factors that may affect the quality of the finished cake. The resulting cake had a satisfactory volume, uniform texture, attractive appearance and soft mouthfeel. The present invention also tested the dosage range for each modified starch. National starch 138: 1-4, National Starch modified Starch Baka snake: 1-4, national starch modified starch H50: 1-4, the finally prepared cake has satisfactory structure and mouthfeel.

TABLE 6

Claims (21)

1. A microwave cake flour composition comprising wheat flour and at least one pregelatinized modified starch.

2. The microwave cake powder composition of claim 1, wherein the at least one pregelatinized modified starch is selected from the group consisting of esterified starches and etherified starches.

3. The microwave cake flour composition of claim 1, wherein the esterified starch is selected from the group consisting of acetylated starch, phosphate modified starch, succinate modified starch, acetate modified starch, nitrate modified starch, xanthate modified starch, and combinations thereof, and the etherified starch is selected from the group consisting of carboxymethylated starch, carboxyethylated starch, hydroxypropylated starch, hydroxyethylated starch, and combinations thereof.

4. The microwave cake powder composition of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the at least one pregelatinized modified starch is further cross-linked.

5. The microwave cake powder composition of claim 4, wherein the crosslinked starch is phosphoric acid crosslinked or adipic acid crosslinked.

6. The microwave cake powder composition of claim 1, wherein the at least one pregelatinized modified starch is selected from the group consisting of hydroxypropyl distarch phosphate, hydroxypropyl starch, acetylated distarch adipate, and combinations thereof.

7. The microwave cake flour composition of claim 1, wherein the at least one pregelatinized modified starch is in an amount of 10% to 80% by weight, based on the weight of the wheat flour.

8. The microwave cake flour composition of claim 1, wherein the amount of the wheat flour is 10-50% by weight, based on the weight of the microwave cake flour composition.

9. The microwave cake flour composition of claim 1, wherein the wheat flour is selected from the group consisting of soft flour, medium flour, and combinations thereof.

10. The microwave cake flour composition of claim 9, wherein the wheat flour is medium gluten flour.

11. The microwave cake powder composition of any one of the preceding claims, further comprising a baking powder comprising sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, calcium dihydrogen phosphate, and tartaric acid.

12. The microwave cake powder composition of claim 11, wherein the amount of sodium bicarbonate in the baking powder is 30-65 parts by weight, the amount of malic acid is 1-25 parts by weight, the amount of disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate is 1-25 parts by weight, the amount of monocalcium phosphate is 1-20 parts by weight, and the amount of tartaric acid is 1-15 parts by weight.

13. The microwave cake flour composition of claim 11 or 12, wherein the amount of baking powder is 5-40% by weight, based on the weight of the wheat flour.

14. The microwave cake powder composition of any one of the preceding claims, further comprising at least one additional ingredient selected from the group consisting of sweeteners, flavors, humectants, emulsifiers, fillers and powdered fats.

15. A baking powder composition comprising sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, calcium dihydrogen phosphate, and tartaric acid.

16. The baking powder composition according to claim 15, wherein the amount of sodium bicarbonate is 30-65 parts by weight, the amount of malic acid is 1-25 parts by weight, the amount of disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate is 1-25 parts by weight, the amount of monocalcium phosphate is 1-20 parts by weight, and the amount of tartaric acid is 1-15 parts by weight.

17. A dough comprising the microwave cake powder composition of any one of claims 1-14.

18. A cake comprising the microwave cake powder composition of any one of claims 1-14.

19. A cake premix composition comprising the baking powder composition of claim 15 or 16.

20. A method of making a cake comprising the steps of:

(a) adding a heat-coagulable protein to the microwave cake mix composition of any one of claims 1-14 and mixing thoroughly to obtain a dough;

(b) the dough is heated in a microwave oven.

21. A cake made according to the method of claim 20.