FILLINGS
Live long and prosper! With consumers wanting simpler ingredients to make a comeback, it is still important to them that their favorite baked products should also maintain all the convenient benefits they have learned to rely on, including long life and great taste. R&D creates the balance allowing bakery fillings to check all the boxes.
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The balance between having better-for-you, cleanlabel products with simpler ingredients and, at the same time, the benefits of a long shelf-life can be found in compiling cleaner fillings, minimizing the use of preservatives and additives, while at the same time maintaining shelf-life properties, and most importantly, not compromising on taste. While fruit fillings have the benefit of using natural extracts and the fruit’s own acidity instead of preservatives, cream-based fillings do not have any natural preservatives in their composition and also require a stabilizer for the water and fat emulsion on which they are based. To further complicate formulating, removing preservatives impacts secondary shelf life: “Once a filling container is opened, it needs to be used completely in one production run or to be stored chilled if some is left unused. Bakers need to work in a very ‘clean’ way in this case, as there is more risk of the product going bad quickly,” explains Christopher Ries, Category Marketing Manager Wets for Europe & AMEAP at Dawn Foods.
Clean-label, versatile options Products with clean-label claims often use natural flavors and colors, such as fruit extracts, and natural preservatives, for example - vinegars. In this category, Dawn Foods’ recent editions of cocoa- and fat-based fillings in its Delicreamrange are designed to work in both fresh products and bakery products with a longer shelf life. And they are all made with only non-hydrogenated fat. Creating or updating recipes to earn clean-label status starts with a clear image of what it entails. For Dawn Foods, it means reducing
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additives and working with ingredients that are as natural and label-friendly as possible. “We always look at both the product category and its functionality. How are our customers using the products? And what would best suit their needs? How can we make a product cleaner, while still answering the production requirements of our customers?”, Ries details. In addition, versatility is an important quality driving the choice of fillings for baked goods. It amounts to several properties, starting with a good viscosity, so they can be easily dosed, but without ‘running out’. Fillings that are suitable for bakery products are, of course, expected to also be bake-stable, freeze-thaw stable, have an appealing color, and (if they are made of fruit) have fruit pieces. Out of all types of fillings, “Jams are the most technical, and need to be adapted the most. For example, viscosity needs to be changed to the customer’s specific dosing machine and the temperature of the application needs to be factored in. It is also important to know the level of water activity in both the jam and the product hosting it to avoid water migration,” R&D illustrates. And that’s not all: if the jam is applied before baking, bake-stability becomes a requirement. “Our Confibel for frangipane is completely different in make-up when compared to a Confibel for zebra cakes. This is why we mostly customize our Confibel range (jams) for our industrial customers, based on the specific requirements of their production process and the application they are using it in,” Ries adds. The recipes vary according to the water activity of the bakery application, the shelf-life requirements and the required viscosity.
