BISCUIT MANUFACTURING UNIT

Baking industry is the most stable sector in the food manufacturing industries. The principal basis for most products in this range is wheat flour. Addition of water and various other ingredients give us variety of products like cookies, crackers, cakes, pastries and biscuits. Biscuits are flat, crisp, baked good, whereas cookies are softer and thicker. Cracker means biscuits of a low sugar and fat content, frequently bland or savory.

Biscuit is a low moisture bakery product. Moisture content of biscuit is typically below 4% depending upon its weight, thickness and shape. Biscuit dough can be made from soft wheat flour with a high amount of sugar (25-55%) and shortening (20-60%). They are classified based on the way the dough is placed on the baking band e.g. rotary molded, wire-cut, cutting machine, etc.

The same Biscuit is made up from the word ‘BIS’ which means twice and ‘Cut’ means balled suggesting that product should be twice balled. The Biscuit were originally developed to meet the requirement of longer life of the barley products and for this, purpose, the dough were made up and twice balled to make them moisture free to improve their keeping qualities. The Biscuit manufacturing was started a century ago mainly to meet the requirement of European Travelers. The industry was located near the sea port but today we have a large number of factories situated in various parts of the country. Producing best quality biscuits equivalent to international standards.

India at present processes mainly following varieties of Biscuits:

1. Plain Biscuit

2. Slightly Sweet Biscuits

3. Sweet Biscuits,

4. Short Biscuits and a small extent fermented biscuit. The plain type includes cheese milk and water biscuits. These contain little if any sweeting agents and a small proportion of fat. Slightly, Sweet Biscuits such as thin arrowroot, marie and petilpeurre contains 20-25 percent of sugar and 16-18 percent of fat. The sweet type contains a much higher proportion of sugar, these are cream Sandwich, the sugar coated and the Ginger Nut Biscuit. Short biscuits contain a high percentage of fat and sugar.

Biscuits are one of the important bakery items and can be used whole day irrespective of time. It is very common for morning breakfast and also used as snacks.

Biscuits are generally classified into soft biscuits, hard biscuits and crackers. Biscuit dough’s are made mainly from flour, fat, sugar and water with minor amounts of flavor, colors, and aerating agents and possibly eggs and fruits.

Obtained from the milling of wheat by the gradual reduction system. The object of milling process is to separate as cleanly as possible, the endosperm of the grain from the enveloping skins and embryo. The flour for biscuit should be weak and low in protein content; the protein content may be 8.5 per cent of less.

Fat is used in biscuit to remove hardness and to improve the shortness of the biscuits – that is to lower the Millard reaction and polymerization particularly in alkaline conditions and invert sugar is effective in diminishing checking in biscuits. Sugars also affect the heat denaturation of flour protein. Aerating agents commonly used are ammonium bicarbonate by itself and sodium bicarbonate with either sodium pyrophosphate or calcium hydrogen phosphate.

Ammonium bicarbonate has the advantage that it leaves no residue and evolves a greater volume of gas per unit weight than any of the others but, in the absence of phosphate and sodium ions, it leaves a raw taste in the biscuits. Sodium pyrophosphate residues give a burning taste and excess sodium bicarbonate gives a fine granular texture to the biscuit (which is desired) but only at the expense of a burning taste.

The doughs are prepared using above mentioned ingredients and formed to the regulated shape by one of various processers and baked in traveling ovens to moisture content of 1 to 4 percent.

INGREDIENTS

Flour

Soft wheat flour is the main component in most recipes. Wheat flour consists of 65 ? 75% starch and 7- 16% protein. When water is added, during the makeup of dough, starch absorbs a significant amount of water and may act as filler in the continuous protein network with the proteins. During baking, starch granules get gelatinized, which is a major part of the dough. Cookies, crackers flours are normally not treated with additives. For cookies to be premium quality, soft wheat flour containing 8 to 10% protein and less than 0.4% ash content is ideally suited.

Water

Water affects textural properties of baked products. Water acts as a plasticizer, and the amount of water used is adjusted to produce a batter or dough of acceptable consistency for processing. Water is needed for hydrating the proteins, gelatinizing the starch, making leavening agent function, activating the enzymes, dissolving sugar and salt, as well as acting as major heat transfer mechanism during baking through evaporation and condensation.

Fat

Fat provides shortness character to the products, like soft, pleasant and crumbly texture. Fats and oils are used in dough and batters, in surface sprays and in cream fillings and coatings such as chocolates. Bakery fats are often premixed with or used in conjunction with emulsifiers. The function of emulsifier is to promote formation and stabilization of water/fat/air emulsions.

Sugar

Sugar is most important ingredient after flour in soft wheat products such as biscuits, cookies, cakes, etc. Apart from providing sweetness to the product, sweeteners provide one or more of the following functions: tenderizing, texture, yeast nutrient and fermentation control, stabilizing, bulking agent, humactancy, flavour, crust colour and shelf-life extension. Sucrose, corn syrup solids, invert sugar, honey, glucose syrup and certain permitted intense sweeteners are used in manufacture of soft wheat products.

Salt

Salt is added to dough as a seasoning or as flavour enhancer. Salt also inhibits yeast growth and thus help in controlling the fermentation.