26

Puff biscuits
D. Manley, Consultant, Duncan Manley Ltd, UK
Abstract: The eating quality of puff biscuits is determined very largely by the nature of the
fat used for laminating. Forming the laminar structure in the dough is a delicate operation
dependent on the fat composition and consistency.
Key words: lamination, fat consistency, cold doughs.
26.1 General description
The aky structure of puff biscuits offers an attractive alternative to those with more
uniform internal structure. Puff biscuits are all made from doughs in which there is
a non-homogeneous distribution of fat. When this dough is laminated the fat causes
discontinuities between the layers of dough and during subsequent baking these
layers separate to give a very aky structure. The laminar structure of puff biscuits
bears some similarities to cream crackers but the dough differs in that the fat is
concentrated between the laminations and little is used to form the basic dough.
The dough is not fermented and is invariably cold and underdeveloped. The methods
for distributing the fat in the dough determine the type of mixers and laminators
needed. The eating quality of puff biscuits is determined very largely by the nature
of the fat used for laminating. Unlike puff pastry for sausage rolls and vol-au-vents
which are best eaten hot, puff biscuits are eaten cold so the fat used must not have
a high melting waxy tail which does not melt in the mouth. This means that close
attention must be given to the melting point of the fat and the plasticity and tem-
perature at the time of use. Thus biscuit puff doughs are always handled cold to
ensure that the fat has a relatively high solids content during processing. It is gener-
ally recognised that puff doughs are among the most difcult biscuit doughs to
handle.
Puff biscuits may be used as unsweetened carriers for butter, cheese, jam, etc., or
as shells for sweet or savoury cream sandwiches (Figs 26.1 and 26.2). In essence they
are a type of cracker biscuit. Where used as sweet biscuits, it is usual to garnish the
surface prior to baking with sugar. During baking this sugar will melt and form a
glossy, lightly browned surface which on cooling is hard. Puff dough made into very
small biscuits may be sold as snacks of various avours, often in jumble packs. Fresh
cheese is often used as the avour material.
Puff biscuits 307
There are some more exotic biscuits which are on the borderline with our con-
fections usually produced by bread and cake bakers. Palmier is one such type made
from puff dough. The dough for palmier is folded after laminating and is then sliced
across the laminations to form pieces for baking. Thus, the expansion is sideways,
not upwards, to produce a aky structure during baking (see Fig. 26.3).
Fig. 26.1 Lemon Puff biscuit.
Fig. 26.2 Cornish wafer.
Three stages of dough
folding before slicing
and baking
Appearance of baked
biscuit
Fig. 26.3 Formation of palmier biscuits.
308 Manleys technology of biscuits, crackers and cookies
26.2 Puff dough preparation
The preparation of layers of dough separated by a lm of fat is the basis of puff
dough. It is necessary that there should be a great number of dough layers and that
each is very thin and more or less discrete. Thus, an extensible dough is required
and the fat must be spread as a thin lm between the layers. The fat must be in a
condition where it has a low liquid fraction and therefore does not become incor-
porated in the dough and is plastic enough to be rolled out into thin lms between
the dough layers.
Much attention must be given to forming a strong but extensible dough and to
ensuring that fat is in the correct condition. Since the fat must have relatively high
solids at processing temperatures but with little solids melting above blood heat, it
is necessary to select an appropriate fat with steep dilatation and to use it well
plasticised at cool or cold dough temperatures.
Extensible doughs for bread or other types of biscuits involve a signicant amount
of development by mixing, with or without the help of yeast, and dough tempera-
tures are usually 30C or above. To produce extensible doughs for puffs, which are
at 18C or less, necessitates the use of strong ours, more water and maybe some
sodium metabisulphite (SMS). No fat, or very little, is used in the dough to ensure
minimum shortening effects so the dough recipe is simply our, water and salt (and
perhaps SMS), there may also be a little milk powder to soften the biscuit texture
and enhance surface colouring during baking. As a consequence, the dough tends
to be rather sticky and this feature limits the level of water that can be used while
making sheeting and gauging possible. In order to achieve a cohesive gluten struc-
ture in such a dough it is necessary to allow relation times for the dough between
each gauging and laminating stage.
The fat may be introduced either as lumps in the partially mixed dough, or as a
layer between two dough sheets on the forming plant. Considering rstly the intro-
duction of the fat into the dough at the mixer, it will be appreciated that the principal
requirements are to distribute the lumps uniformly while pressing as little as pos-
sible of the fat into the dough. It is necessary to use a mixer with gentle cutting and
good blending action and probable that fat lumps of uniform size, say about 2.5 cm
cube, will be best. Too large lumps will give sheeting and laminating problems and
too small pieces will tend to merge into the dough reducing the effect of the fat and
causing shortening of the dough. The fat must be plastic and of similar consistency
to the dough of which it is a part. The lumps may be of pure fat, a mixture of fat
and our or fat emulsied with some water (similar to butter or margarine). Prepa-
ration of plasticised fat is of great importance and is described in Section 12.2.1.
Where the fat is spread between two sheets of dough the means of distributing
the fat (or fat mixture) is the principal problem. On standard biscuit plant the sheets
may be 8001200 mm wide and it is virtually impossible to extrude fat of the desired
consistency evenly over this width. The most satisfactory system involves spreading
akes of fat either by hand or by raking. The layer of fat must be as uniform as
possible to allow even control of plant and product later in the process.
There are special puff dough plants available where a layer of plasticised fat is
extruded between two sheets of dough but the width of this part of the plant is
usually narrow. If the lamination is with a lapping type of laminator where a 90
turn is made, it is possible to increase the plant width by lapping the narrow dough
sheet over a wider conveyor.
Puff biscuits 309
Having introduced the fat, whether discretely in a layer between two dough
sheets, or randomly through the dough as lumps, it is then necessary to gauge and
laminate in order to build up the structure. Considerations of dough stickiness and
fat solids determine that the dough is usually of higher consistency than either cream
cracker or semi-sweet biscuit dough so it is less malleable in terms of folding on a
continuous lapper type laminator. A cut sheet laminator where no folding stresses
are involved is thus preferable. The limitation is that on cut sheet laminators because
the centre of the dough is exposed in the cut edges, fat placed between two sheets
and thus exposed will form surface marking which will be unacceptable later in the
process. This means that mechanical laminating must suit the type of dough prepara-
tion involved.
The number of laminations, the number of turns (90 changes in direction) and
the speed of processing must all be considered carefully. If the laps are too few the
biscuit structure will be coarsely aky and may be irregular in development. If there
are too many laps (laminations) the rolling and stretching involved will exceed the
elasticity of the dough causing breakdown and loss of laminations. This will give a
poor structure also. The thickness, development of the puff structure in the biscuit,
increases with the number of laminations to a certain point and then it collapses
rapidly. The optimum number of layers must be found by experiment and if possible
a standard established so that variations in dough quality, which affect the biscuit
development and which will occur from time to time, may be compensated for by
laminator settings. As a general rule, about 42 layers (7 at the rst laminator fol-
lowed by 6 at a second laminator involving one or two turns) may be near the
optimum for puff biscuits. It will be necessary to dust the dough with our through
successive gauge rolls to prevent sticking and tearing of the delicate layers as they
are rolled.
It is a matter for debate whether the passage through the gauge rolls should be
done slowly or rapidly. There will be some spring and recovery of the dough follow-
ing deformation and, traditionally, puff pastry doughs are allowed to stand and relax
following each reduction. The use of SMS has reduced the need for relaxation, but
it is still possible to exceed the elastic limits of the gluten in the dough if processing
is too severe (either by pressure or speed). If possible the gauging reductions should
be made gradually through a multiplicity of rolls. Unfortunately, a plant with two
laminators is already long and complex so the introduction of extra gauging rolls is
usually impracticable. Although it is not commonly used by biscuit makers at present,
it is worth noting the special puff dough method offered by the Rheon company of
Japan. This is built primarily for the our confectionery trade rather than for biscuits
but it offers some interesting techniques.
Dough is extruded in a tubular form and a lining tube of fat is co-extruded within
it. The double tube is attened, gauged then laminated before being gauged and
laminated again. The gauging is by means of what is known as a stretcher which
consists of an endless chain of rollers arranged behind one another. These rollers
pass over the dough sheet supported on a total of three or more conveyors. The
rollers are driven over the dough faster than it is carried on the conveyors so they
perform a gradual gauging action in a relatively short length. The effect is not only
to reduce the thickness more gradually than one conventional biscuit gauge roller,
but also to increase the dough sheet width somewhat. It is undoubtedly more
gradual in action than any other method, but the change in dough width may
represent some problems unless the nal sheet width can be guaranteed for the
310 Manleys technology of biscuits, crackers and cookies
purposes of cutting and weight control. Figure 26.4 shows the principle of the Rheon
system (see also Cleven and Fluckiger [1]).
The technique of co-extruding the fat in the form of a lining to a tube of dough
is a good idea as an alternative to two dough sheets and spreading of fat by any
other means. However, unless high melting point pastry margarines are used, close
attention should be given to the dough and ambient temperature because the con-
sistencies of the fat and dough must be well related.
Puff dough pieces are cut, garnished and panned onto the oven in a similar
method to other types of biscuits. The scrap dough must be returned to the head of
the laminator and introduced in some form of even sheet. The scrap dough will be
of signicantly different quality from the fresh dough by virtue of both the fat
content or the form of the fat within it.
26.3 Baking of puff biscuits
Baking presents no particular problems. Optimum development is obtained with an
oven temperature prole that is very hot at the front as for cracker ovens. If the
front bottom heat is too high relative to the top heat, the biscuits will tend to curl
into a saucer shape with the edges high. Increasing the top heat will encourage the
centres to rise more giving either at biscuits or a doming with the centres high.
Control of top and bottom heat at the front of the oven is easier if light, wire mesh
bands are used.
Final moisture contents are not very critical as far as checking is concerned so in
this respect puff biscuits are not like cream crackers. Moistures of around 2.5% are
quite satisfactory. The molten sugar glaze frequently found on puff biscuits results
from ne sugar melting during baking. Temperatures high enough to melt the sugar
on the biscuit surface are easily achieved provided that there is good development
Dough
Plasticised
fat
Extruded tubes of dough and fat
Dough
Dough sheet thickness reduction
Flattened tube of dough
containing fat
Fig. 26.4 Some stages in the Rheon method of puff dough manufacture.
Puff biscuits 311
of the aky structure. If development is poor the surface temperature is held down
and the sugar will not melt and begin to caramelise. In these cases, strong radiant
heat directed at the biscuit surface at the oven exit may prove useful in obtaining
the desired appearance. Alternatively, a mixture of dextrose monohydrate and sugar
used as the garnish will more readily melt and give a pleasing surface colour and
gloss. The disadvantage of using dextrose to give a surface colour and gloss is that
it is more hygroscopic than sucrose glass and this means that the biscuits rapidly
become sticky either when the pack is unwrapped or before packaging on days of
high humidity.
26.4 Puff biscuit production techniques
It would seem that little has been published about modern puff biscuit production
methods. This is probably because techniques are closely guarded as are recipes
for speciality products. However, more is disclosed about puff pastry techniques.
In addition to that about the Rheon equipment [1], a useful paper was given by
Thursby [2] to the British Society of Baking in 1976. This was about puff pastry
production which is signicantly different from biscuits being orientated to small-
scale production and mostly for savoury (meat) products. Details, however, are given
of the principles involved and the effects of different ingredients, particularly fats
and margarines. As has been stated earlier, there is a quality problem if biscuits,
which are eaten cold, have been made with high-melting-point fats typical of pastry
margarines. The reader is also referred to publications by puff pastry fat
manufacturers.
26.5 References
[1] cleven, f. and uckiger, W. (1977), A new method of continuous puff pastry and aky
pastry production, Getreide, Mehl und Brot, 31, 7374 (in German).
[2] thursby, r. f. (1976) The Modern Production of Puff Pastry, Proceedings of British
Society of Baking, March.
26.6 Useful reading
[3] manley, d. (2001) Biscuit, cracker and cookie recipes for the food industry. Woodhead
Publishing, Cambridge.