Development Of A Processing Regime And A Formula For Block-Type Cheese Analogue

Cheese analogues are manufactured by blending various edible oil/fats, proteins (including non-dairy fats or proteins), water and other ingredients into a cheese-like product. They are increasingly used due to their cost-effectiveness, the simplicity of their manufacture and the replacement of selected milk ingredients by cheaper vegetable products. On the basis of complete understanding international cheese analogues, the processing regime and the content of starting materials of cheese analogue were studied in this paper.Cheese analogues with similar compositions were made with four different processing regimes. The effect of processing regime on the quality of cheese analogues were investigated. The best processing regime was: (1) A great deal of water (80 parts) was used to solubilize emulsifying salts. The mixture of lactic acid and sodium chloride was diluted in the remaining water (20 parts). (2) Peanut oil was directly added to the cooker, followed by rennet casein. The mixture was heated to 80℃and the ingredients were mixed at 600rpm for 3min. (3) The emulsifying salts solution was incorporated, then agitated for 30min. (4) The solution of lactic acid and sodium chloride was added and mixed for a further 10min. (5) When plastic mass was formed, the mixture was shifted to moulds, allowed to cool (at room temperature) for 1h. Then the cheese analogues were stored in a refrigerator at 4℃.Cheese analogues different in types and amounts of emulsifying salts were made to determine the influence of constituents on the characteristics of cheese analogues. Cheese analogues varying in amounts of fat, sodium chloride, lactic acid and moisture were also prepared. Increasing emulsifying salts gave cheese analogues with lower hardness and higher melting ability. In this experiment, hardness and melting ability were inversely related. Increasing fat content resulted in a softer and more cohesive cheese analogue. But the melting ability was unaffected by fat content (P<0.05). Increasing lactic acid or sodium chloride content caused a significant increase in hardness and decrease in cohesiveness (P<0.05). Increasing salt content also resulted in a significant increase in melting ability (P<0.05), but lactic acid content didn't affect melting ability. An increase in the moisture content of the cheese analogue resulted in significantly decreasing hardness and increasing melting ability (P<0.05). On the basis of previous trials, trisodium citrate blended with disodium phosphate (2:1) at the rate of 1.5% and the moisture content at the rate of 50% were tried out to attain the desired functional properties. The formula of cheese analogues were optimized in the design of three factors quadratic. The best formula was 17% of fat content, 0.6% of lactic acid content, 1.55% of salt content. Lactic acid had a extremely significant influence (P<0.01) on the hardness and melting ability of cheese analogues, but fat content had the smallest effect.Cheese analogues made with the formula developed in this study had lower firmness, higher cohesiveness and higher melting ability, compared with the marketing products with similar composition and characteristics. But cheese analogue didn't form dairy flavour and tasted a little bad without adding any flavour or flavour enhancers.