BAKED GOODS

Products like bread, biscuits, rusks and cakes are created through a baking process. Baking is the process of exposing a combination of ingredients to heat, which in turn alters their properties. This process causes bread to rise, rusks to harden and biscuits to crisp, all of these changes also cause a change to the Colour and Appearance, which needs to be managed.

Consumers are always looking at the consistency, reliability and quality of their purchases, this is especially true for food products including Biscuits, Rusks, Breads and Muffins. As the old saying goes, “You eat with your eyes” and so it is important to control and manage the Colour of Baked products. Over the years, consumers have developed certain expectations. Consumers expect their Rusks to be the Colour of Tea, their Ginger Biscuits to be Golden Brown and their Wholewheat Bread to be a light brown.

Bakers experience a number of challenges controlling the colour during the baking process. Bakers need to manage the colour of raw materials and ingredients because you can’t control colour of a final product if you do not manage it from the start. The colour of baked goods changes during the baking process. An over baked good can become too Dark and appear burnt while an under baked good will not have that appealing Golden Colour.

Colour measurement can assist bakers in the following ways:

• Measure the colour of incoming raw materials and ingredients
• Measure the Flour, Sugar, Butter and Eggs before you start baking
• Control baking time to ensure consistency from batch to batch
• Reduce customer complaints and rejections due to colour
• Measure properties like moisture content
• Reduce colour debates between colleagues, customers and suppliers
• Save time and improve baking efficiency