Vedpal Yadav, Lecturer in Food Technology, Government Polytechnic, Mandi Adampur, Hisar, Haryana, India-125053.
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colors, flavors, and textures, and can use a variety of flours and meals. This has been achieved, and it
is the purpose of this section to review the technology of the extrusion puffing of meals and doughs.
Other grain products- Large quantities of corn meal are used in puffed, extruded snack products and
in many brands of fried corn chip snacks. The production of corn flour and corn meal by dry milling
operations is discussed in another chapter. Field (dent variety) com is sometimes processed directly
into alkaline-treated masa for use in corn chips based on the traditional tortilla preparation method
(such as "Fritos"). These production methods will be discussed below.
Flour and other derivatives of the wheat kernel are used in many baked, fried, and extruded
snack products, some examples being pretzels, flavored crackers (cheese, etc.), and cookies. Flour,
bran, farina, and other fractions of the wheat kernel are obtained by means of the milling process,
which is a combination of conditioning, grinding, and particle-classification operations.
Flours from hard wheat are used as ingredients for such products as bread, rolls, pretzels,
English muffins, etc. Doughs made from soft wheat flours tend to require smaller quantities of water
in their preparation and to be soft and less elastic. Soft wheat flour is used mainly for cakes, cookies,
and quick breads such as baking powder biscuits and cake-type muffins.
Expandable ingredients.-Many types of starchy flours and meals obtained from grains, tubers, etc.,
have been found to be suitable ingredients for puffed snacks.
Rice flour expands readily into a low-density, white, and bland tasting product of crisp but
rather fragile texture.
Corn meals can be expanded with little difficulty into crisp pieces having the typical corn
flavor and a color that is white or light yellow according to the type of com.
Fats, Oils, Emulsifiers and Antioxidants
The ingredients described in this section are included here because they are used in the
preparation of snack products. Other materials of the same type are discussed in the chapter on bakery
products. Frying fat is both a processing agent (heat transfer medium) and an ingredient in many
important snack products, such as potato chips. In other snacks, it may function only as an ingredient.
In any case, it has significant effects on the appearance, flavor, and texture of the product and is often
the ingredient which limits shelf-life. It may also be the most expensive ingredient in the product.
Major sources of food lipids are annual field crops of soybeans, peanuts, cottonseed, rapeseed
("canola"), corn, and sunflower seed. Animal fats, including butter, lard, tallow, and grease, are very
important snack ingredients. Palm, palm kernel, coconut, and olive oils are food oils originating from
trees grown almost entirely in the tropics. Cocoa butter is an expensive but highly important fat in
confectionery manufacture.
Shortenings.-The shortenings used in some snacks include animal fats and oils and vegetable fats and
oils. The animal products in use are butter, beef fats, and a few other minor items. Vegetable
shortenings are based on many different kinds of fats and oils from seeds, fruits, and nuts.
Since butter is quite expensive relative to most other fats, its use is restricted to those products
in which its flavor makes a significant contribution to acceptability or in which its use permits
advertising claims having marketing value. Popcorn is traditionally seasoned with butter, but virtually
all commercially popped com of the "buttered" variety will contain vegetable oil materials with added
artificial or natural butter flavors. If some of the natural product is to be included for labeling and
marketing purposes, low-score butter is often preferred to the blander high-score products.
Lard has a distinctive natural flavor that is thought to be desirable in some foods, although it is
not a common ingredient in snacks because of its limited stability.
Beef tallow is obtained from edible fatty tissues of cattle. It is normally a hard but plastic fat
having a melting point of about 110º to 120º F. Because of its hardness, it is often subjected to further
processing rather than used in its native form.
Beef fats rendered by special methods are separated by fractional crystallization into oleo oil
(low melting fraction) and oleostearin (high melting fraction). Its short plastic range (from about 70' to
80'F) and relatively low melting point make oleo oil a fairly good substitute for coconut oil in some