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Culinary creations
Student team develops new recipes for foods featuring dried fruits
From CATI Publication #971001
Copyright © 1997. All rights reserved.
Some people feel compelled to invent new military machines; others, electronic gadgets or computer software. For Julie Wooten and Kelly K. Eichmann, the creative drive goes into something that can be enjoyed by well, just about everybody – they are inventors of new food products. Working under a contract through the Center for Food Science and Nutrition Resarch (CFSNR) this summer, the two California State University, Fresno students developed new recipes for Yorkshire Dried Fruit and Nuts Inc., which markets dried fruit products for Del Monte Corp.
"We had already taken classes in advanced foods and dietetics, where we learned composition of food products and processes of food making, so we were able to apply many of those principles to our project," Wooten said in outlining their work. Both Wooten and Eichmann will be seniors this year, majoring in Food and Nutritional Sciences in the Department of Enology, Food Science and Nutrition. They were recruited for the project by department chair Joanne Caid, and associate professor Marie Dunford, who also is director of the CFSNR.
Yorkshire had a promotional plan to increase visibility of Del Monte dried food products, specifically, raisins, apricots, dates, prunes, and apples, all of which are grown in California, Eichmann explained. One phase of the plan was to offer new recipes for foods featuring these products. A key emphasis was reduced fat content. But there were other requirements to make the recipes attractive to today’s on-the-go cooks, Eichmann said. Preparation time (not including baking) was to be 30 minutes or less; ingredients were limited to eight items; and ingredients had to be those found in most kitchen cupboards.
Required recipes for the project included one "quick bread" that needs no kneading or rising time; and a power bar for "soccer moms" to feed their youngsters before or after Saturday sports activities. The other five recipes were left to the ingenuity of the development team.
"Our job was to get as much of the dried fruit product out there as possible, and give people things to do with it," Wooten said. To achieve the reduced-fat goal, the team spent dozens of hours in Fresno State’s food laboratories during the summer, developing substitutes for high-fat ingredients such as butter, shortening and oil. The lower-fat ingredients ranged from applesauce to prune puree, and the results were sometimes unexpected.
"We had a lot of frustrations," Wooten recalled. "Shortening and oil have special properties that give texture to foods, and other ingredients just don’t have those same properties." Some results included cookies that would bend but not break, and cake that chewed like chewing gum, Eichmann said.
But like all successful scientists before them, the pair perservered through their failures until they found just the right combinations to make tasty but lower-fat foods for America’s consumers. Final new recipes include "Healthy Morning" date scones; oatmeal-raisin cookies; mixed fruit granola cereal; fruity angel food cake; and apple cinamon cake. The recipes will be published on actual food packages and in brochures for general distribution. One recipe, the quick bread, will be featured in a promotional campaign later this year in local newspapers, Eichmann said. It will be listed in a coupon advertisement in the Fresno Bee Dec. 14. Until then, she said, it remains "classified."
Dunford said she was pleased that the CFSNR was able to serve as a conduit between the commercial food processing industry and the students who some day will be working in it. The project will benefit both California’s agricultural community and consumers.
"But the greatest benefit may have been to the students who were able to apply the scientific principles learned in classes to solve problems," Dunford said. For more information, visit the Center for Food Science and Nutrition Research section of this web site, or call (559) 278-5924.
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Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.
CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE - CATI
College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology
California State University, Fresno