Protein containing molded food products

Abstract

Novel, edible, pressure molded proteinaceous wafer, waffle, inclusion ingredient, and cookie food products are derived utilizing an engineered batter formulation including proteinaceous materials, water, oils / fats, flavors, and select percentages of carbohydrates. The batter has a specific mass balance ratio that allows the wafers to be consistently manufactured on process equipment that was designed for carbohydrate wafer, waffle, or cookie processing. The novel engineered mass balance-based protein formulation provides a batter that can be pumped, utilizes standard steam port pressure relief systems, and results in a final food product that has marketable organoleptic qualities as a component in fabricated protein bars / snacks, confections, as in inclusion in other foods, or as an independent snack food, frozen breakfast food, cookie, or cone product.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 318,950, filed Dec. 13, 2002, which itself claims priority to Provisional patent application 60 / 340,236, filed Dec. 14, 2001, each of the contents of the entirety of which are incorporated by this reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Currently, all molded, baked, wafer-waffle-cookie food products are made from high carbohydrate / fat / lecithin / water batter formulations, processed on expensive continuous process lines, utilizing molding plate and drum technology, including but not limited to large scale commercial equipment from Hebenstreit and Franz Haas. Such specialized process equipment systems have been designed for mixing, pumping, applying (depositing), molding, baking, and processing high carbohydrate-based batters and resulting final molded food products including bars / cones / confections / inclusions / waffles / wafer cookies / pizzelles / fortune cookies. High ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0004] However, the inventive engineered mass balance formulation of proteins / fat / lecithin / water / flavor systems, and carbohydrates, allows high-protein batters and resulting wafers to be processed on existing process equipment, without requiring extensive re-engineering and modification of the wafer equipment, including new wafer molding plate steam pressure release ports, batter mixing and pumping / piping systems, and batter applicator (depositing) heads.

Problems solved by technology

Without the mass balance-viscosity ratio, a protein-based batter would significantly increase standard steam port pressure, with possible explosion ramifications; costly steam port modification of the standard process molding equipment would have to be undertaken, which would include re-engineering and manually modifying all of the wafer molding plate steam pressure release ports to specifically handle identified steam pressure requirements.