A E Staley Manufacturing Company

Hsiung Cheng

Carl O Moore

Robert V Schanefelt

William S Huebner

An ingredient for enhancing the texture and organoleptic properties of tapioca-style pudding. Granular starch is pre-extruded under controlled conditions to obtain partially gelatinized spheroidal starch particles for use in tapioca-style puddings. The spheroidal starch particles (or 'pearls') retain their spheroidal shape in the finished pudding, thereby providing excellent texture, appearance and mouthfeel to the pudding. The starch pearls, after cooking, consistently provide the highly desired translucent appearance expected in home cooked, tapioca-style puddings. The extrusion process is cooled by water at a temperature below 100.degree. F. at an extrusion rate which only partially gelatinizes the starch. The granular starch is supplied to the extruder at 25-50% moisture, and the extrudates are cut into particles suitable for a particular use by a cutting means as the extrudates emerge from the extruder die orifices. The particles are then dried, as by oven drying, to less than about 12% moisture, dry solids basis. The drying temperature should be kept low enough to avoid additional gelatinization of the partially gelatinized starch particles. Particularly suitable starch particles for use in automated canning process have been found to be gelatinized to a level of about 45-70% by weight, dry solids basis.

Extruded starch product for tapioca-style pudding

Starch batters which can be applied to food pieces (e.g., chicken), breaded, frozen and subsequently fried into a high-quality, fried, breaded product are obtained by employing a novel batter starch system. The batter starches are comprised of ungelatinized, cold-water swelling starches and starch granules having a gelation point above 125.degree.F. The starch batters are formulated in aqueous mediums (e.g., below 120.degree.F.) to provide a batter system containing unswollen starch granules uniformly dispersed within an adhesive matrix of highly swollen, non-birefringent, hydrated starch granules.

Edible starch batters

The invention encompasses intermediate, starch-containing products in which the starch thickening capacity is inhibited by an aqueous dispersant system. These intermediate products can be readily converted into a starch thickened end-product by combining the intermediate product with additives which dissipate the inhibitory effect of the aqueous dispersant. The intermediate products may be provided as a concentrate which contains cold-water swelling starch granules suspended in an aqueous media adapted to effectively maintain the starch granules in an unswollen form. The intermediate products may be suitably formulated with all the desired recipe ingredients except the amount of water needed to convert it into a starch thickened end-product.

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Decatur, IL, United States of America

Hsiung Cheng