Dehydrated cream and methods of making and reconstituting same
OwnerJoseph DUMPLER, Carmen I. MORARUinventors
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Abstract
Provided is a process for producing shelf stable dehydrated heavy cream with a shelf-life exceeding 6 months when stored in lightproof packaging at room temperature using gentle homogenization followed by microwave vacuum drying. Also provided is a dehydrated cream made from this method. The dehydrated cream product that can be easily reconstituted with water, either in a blender (household setting) or a rotor-stator homogenizer (industrial scale). The reconstituted dehydrated cream product maintains all the functional properties of the unprocessed heavy cream and allows for either direct utilization or consumption as heavy cream, or the production of whipped cream, ice cream, and butter.
Claims39
A dehydrated cream product, comprising:
- 45-86% fat by mass;
- and,
- less than or equal to 1.5% water by mass,
- wherein at least a portion of the fat is fat globules, and when the dehydrated cream product is reconstituted, at least 80% of the fat globules have a longest linear dimension of 1 to 20 μm.
A method for producing a dehydrated cream product, comprising:
- providing a dairy cream composition comprising emulsified solids comprising fat, wherein at least a portion of the fat is present as fat globules, wherein the dairy cream composition has a fat content of 8-36% by mass;
- homogenizing the dairy cream composition such that 80% of the fat globules or clusters of fat globules of the dairy cream composition have a diameter of 0.25-10 μm;
- and
- subjecting the homogenized dairy cream composition to vacuum drying to result in a dehydrated cream product having a fat content of 45-86% by mass, and a moisture content of less than or equal to 1.5% by mass.
A method for preparing a dehydrated milk cream product, the method comprising:
- obtaining milk cream comprising 20-35% w/w fat content and has a protein-to-fat ratio of 1:10 to 1:21;
- homogenizing the milk cream 7 MPa in the first stage and 3.5 MPa in the second stage at 65-70° C. to generate a homogenized milk cream;
- evaporating the homogenized milk to 43% w/w solids to generate an evaporated milk cream;
- and
- microwave vacuum drying the evaporated milk cream to generate a dehydrated milk cream product with 45-86% w/w fat, and a residual moisture content of 1.5% w/w or less corresponding to a water activity of 0.35 or less.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.