Liquid bread improving compositions

#The present invention relates to liquid bread improving compositions. The invention also relates to a process for the preparation of a dough using said liquid bread improving compositions as well as to a process for the preparation of a baked product from such a dough.

#Bread production starts with the preparation of a dough. Basic doughs are made from cereal flour such as wheat flour, water, optionally salt and a leavening agent such as baker's yeast. After mixing, moulding and fermentation, the leavened dough is baked to give bread. In order to improve the bread making process and the quality of the resulting bread, bread improving substances are usually added. Aspects of the bread which are improved by these substances include volume (increased), crumb structure and softness. Aspects of the dough that can be improved are its elasticity, plasticity and stability which also lead to improved machinability and gas holding capacity.

#Suitable bread improving substances include compounds such as oxidising and reducing agents, emulsifiers, fats, bleaching agents and many others. On the other hand, several enzymes are nowadays used as a result of a tendency to replace such chemicals with naturally occurring enzymes. Suitable enzymes which are widely used for this purpose are found in the classes of carbohydrases, in particular those acting on carbohydrates such as starch, cellulose, hemicelluloses such as arabinoxylans), protein modifying enzymes (acting on proteins such as gluten), fat splitting enzymes such as lipases and phospholipases which act on naturally present or artificially added (phospho)lipids and several others. Most of the enzymes typically used are derived from fermentation processes involving fungi or bacteria.

#The stability of the following baking enzymes, fungal a-amylase, hemicellulase and glucose oxidase, was tested in aqueous formulations containing various concentrations of glycerol (0, 30 and 50 wt %) at 25° C. over 6 months. Samples were analysed for their residual activity by specific assays for fungala-amylase, hemicellulase and glucose oxidase activity, respectively. In Table 1 the relative residual activities of these samples over time are given. All values are the average of duplicate determinations. As can be seen from these results, the stability of fungal α-amylase, hemicellulase and glucose oxidase at 25° C. in the presence of 30 or 50% glycerol is considerably improved as compared with the stability of these enzymes in the absence of glycerol. In particular, fungal α-amylase in the presence of 50% glycerol was very stable during 3 months at 25° C. At 4° C. more than 95% of the enzyme activity remained after storage for 26 weeks in the presence of 30 to 50 wt % glycerol.

#Fungal α-amylase activity was measured in FAU (fungal amylase unit). 1 FAU is defined as the amount of enzyme that converts 1 gram of soluble starch per hour at pH 5.0 and 30° C. into a product having, after reaction with iodine, an equal absorption at 620 nm as a reference solution of CoCl2 solution in potassium bichromate.

#Hemicellulase activity was measured in LYX-units. 1 LYX unit is defined as the amount of enzyme that causes at pH 2.75 and 47° C. a decrease in viscosity at a rate of 1 min−1 wheat arabinoxylan solution that has a standardised viscosity and which is measured in a Ubbelohde n° 1 viscometer.