Modelling of baking behaviour of semi-sweet short dough biscuits

Dough materials are interesting systems widely used in biscuit production. Baking is one of the most important steps, because the raw dough is transformed into the final biscuit during cooking time, resulting in a specific texture. A mathematical program describing the transport phenomena and the physical changes inside the oven is presented in this study in order to predict biscuit temperature, water content, height, porosity and other baking attributes. The evolution of the heterogeneous structure is taken into account by the expansion of the internal bubbles in the viscoelastic medium. The system was considered pseudo-homogenous, with the aim of modeling both the baking process and the gas cell growth in the matrix. This approach was used to analyze the evolution of the biscuit properties, considering "effective" properties. The model was solved by a finite difference method and numerical results were in good agreement with industrial experimental data. Industrial relevance: This paper describes the mathematical modeling of biscuit baking that can be used as a tool to improve the baking conditions and the final biscuit texture. Food is very complex both in composition and structure; therefore, generic realistic models are required that can mimic this complexity. This model can facilitate the evaluation of the impact of changing composition or processing conditions. This research can help the optimization of processing and formulations (reverse engineering), because the baking program takes into account the ingredients and the rheological food properties and than can be used as a tool for design and control of new biscuits