Proven Soy Solutions for the Baking Industry
Frank Urso, Bakery Food Scientist, Stratas Foods
I have a unique background as an artisan baker as well as a food scientist. And what that does is it allows me to think as an artisan baker and as a food scientist at the same time. Some of the questions that I had were what to expect in the performance of the shortening. What we’ve discovered is high oleic soybean shortening is a great drop-in ingredient where you don't have to change what you’ve been doing in the past.
Roger Daniels, Vice President, Research, Development & Innovation, Stratas Foods
The results were nothing short of amazing. We found that we had achieved a new gold standard in performance without partial hydrogenation.
Frank Flider, Edible Oils Consultant, QUALISOY
Over the past several years we've developed a very large body of functionality data. We’ve evaluated high oleic soybean oil and high oleic soybean shortening in a number of applications including deep frying, doughnut frying, cookies, cakes, icings, laminated doughs and pie crusts. Replacing PHO shortening has been a very difficult undertaking for the food industry. We’ve found that high oleic soybean shortening is the complete package: it's 100% U.S. grown, it’s produced sustainably by U.S. farmers and because it's a drop-in substitute for PHO shortenings, it has superior functionality to other potential substitutes.
Roger Daniels, Vice President, Research, Development & Innovation, Stratas Foods
High oleic soybean oil allows us to achieve a standard that is expected within the industry.
Frank Flider, Edible Oils Consultant, QUALISOY
Fully hydrogenated soybean oil is an important component of high oleic soybean shortening. Because it's fully hydrogenated, it contributes no trans to the shortening.
Roger Daniels, Vice President, Research, Development & Innovation, Stratas Foods
The interesting thing about pie crust is that while it looks to be a very simple application, it has a nuance associated with it that that the high oleic soybean oil shortening excelled at.
Frank Urso, Bakery Food Scientist, Stratas Foods
So, we added the flour and now. What I'm seeing here is the little pills of fat that are going to form the layers. This is a great thing to see because it shows the fat is intact in the dough and not mixed with it.
(Machine pressing crust)
The high oleic soybean shortening produces a dough that's firm enough to stand up to the machine but also gentle enough that it kneads well.
Jacob Maynard, Scientist, Stratas Foods
With the testing capabilities that we have, we can take qualitative information, like sensory or taste or texture and turn it into concrete, raw data. We are trying to make sure that high oleic soybean shortening isn’t just something that you think matches a partially hydrogenated oil, it's something that we can put a number to to say that this does match partially hydrogenated oils.
Frank Urso, Bakery Food Scientist, Stratas Foods
What we're finding is that the high oleic soybean shortening in the pie crust dough has a strong functionality where it has to create pockets and layers in that dough to create the flakiness that everybody loves.
Frank Flider, Edible Oils Consultant, QUALISOY
High oleic soybean oil shortening is unique compared to other potential PHO substitutes. It has a very wide temperature range, it has excellent melting properties and because of the interesterification process we can approximate any specification or need of a food company.
Frank Urso, Bakery Food Scientist, Stratas Foods
Laminated dough, more specifically puff pastry, is compiled of a series of layers of fat and dough which are rolled thin and folded over each other several times to create multiple layers. Some of the qualities that we look for in a finished baked puff pastry: number one, the height. Number 2, the evenness of the layers and number 3, how flaky it is. What we’ve discovered with the high oleic soybean shortening is that it mimics what a PHO would do as well as what butter does which is considered the gold standard in puff pastry.
Jacob Maynard, Scientist, Stratas Foods
We found that using margarine that has a high oleic soybean base will outperform alternative options in giving you that rise in a puff pastry.
Frank Urso, Bakery Food Scientist, Stratas Foods
Something else that we discovered about high oleic soybean shortening is that it allows for more tolerance in machinability in a commercial setting.
Roger Daniels, Vice President, Research, Development & Innovation, Stratas Foods
The beautiful thing about the high oleic soybean oil is that the performance that we've objectively established is far superior to other solutions that are currently available.
Frank Urso, Bakery Food Scientist, Stratas Foods
I always found pastries and baking to be magical, something that you can create, watch happen by just mixing simple ingredients together.