The Effects of Vacuum Cooling on Some Physico-chemical and Microbiological Properties of Shortened Cake

In the bakery industry, it is required to cool the product as soon as possible after the product is taken out of the oven and prior to packaging in order to avoid vapour condensation inside the wrapping. The object of this study is the design of vacuum cooling system and to compare the effects of different cooling methods on some physico-chemical and microbiological properties of shortened cake.
After baking the products were allowed to cool down by different methods namely still air cooling (24 ℃), forced air cooling (air velocity was 1.5 m/s) and vacuum cooling (40 mbar). The cooling process ended when the center temperature of the samples reached the temperature of 30 °C. Cooling time, mass loss, hardness, moisture content, water activity and sensory quality were investigated after cooling.
The results showed that the weight loss of 4.58% was obtained concerned with shortest cooling time of 94 seconds for vacuum cooling in comparison to air cooling and forced air cooling cakes (p0.05) between overall acceptability of the cake samples.
Vacuum cooling has provided and demonstrated benefits, regarding the shortening of cooling time and minimization of microbial growth. It is expected that its application will become more competitive and widespread in the future.