
Baking is stated to be one of the oldest methods of cooking. The cooking process is carried out by dry heat in some kind of oven. Bakery products are prepared from one or more of the flours which are derivative of some cereal grain. Baked products include breads, biscuits, rolls, pies, cakes, pastries, and muffins.
Bread is a common staple right from prehistoric times as it provides a number of nutrients in the human diet. According to the Food and Agricultural organisation FAO Bread is “A baked product of flour or meal of cereals, especially wheat and includes ordinary, unleavened, crackers, rusks, etc.”
According to Codex Alimentarius “Rusks and biscuits are cereal-based foods for infants and children, produced by baking process, which may be used either directly or, after pulverization, with the addition of water, milk or other suitable liquids. “Milk biscuits” consist primarily of cereals and contain milk solids.” They continue and say that dry cereals rusk, biscuits and pasta are prepared primarily from one or more milled cereal products, such as wheat, rice, barley, oats, rye, maize, millet, sorghum and buckwheat and/or legumes (pulses) and also, sesame, arachis and soybean. These products can also contain optional ingredients like milk and milk products, eggs, meat, fats and oils, fruits and vegetables, sugars (nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners), malts, salt, honey, cocoa, potatoes, starches proteins as recommended by standards. “They can be fortified with vitamins, minerals and iodized salt in conformity with the legislation of the country in which the product is sold.”
FSSAI guidelines
The FSSAI has standards for two products under the bakery category and these are biscuits and breads which have ingredients that are used and available in India.
BISCUITS including wafer biscuits are made from maida, vanaspati or refined edible oil or table butter or desi butter or margarine or ghee or their mixture and contain one or more of the following ingredients – edible common salt, butter, milk powder, cereals and their products, cheese cocoa, coffee extract, edible desiccated coconut, dextrose, fruit and fruits products, dry fruit and nuts, egg, edible vegetable products, ginger, gluten groundnut flour, milk and milk products, honey, liquid glucose, malt products, edible oilseeds, flour and meals, spices and condiments, edible starches such as potato starch and edible flours, sugar and sugar products, invert sugar, jaggery, protein concentrates, oligofructose (max 15%) vinegar and other nutrients and vitamins.
Biscuits may contain food additives specified in FSSAI regulations and may with label declaration as provided in Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011.
They need to conform to standards
Ash insoluble in dilute hydrochloric acid (on dry basis) – not more than 0.1 per cent
Acidity of extracted fat (as oleic acid) – not exceeding 1.5 per cent.
BREAD whether sold as white bread or wheat bread or fancy or fruity bread or bun or masala bread or milk bread or of any other name, shall mean the product prepared from a mixture of wheat atta, maida, water, salt, yeast or other fermentive medium. It may contain one or more of the following ingredients condensed milk, milk powder (whole or skimmed), whey, curd, gluten, sugar, gur or jaggery, honey khandsari, liquid glucose, malt products, edible starches and flour, edible groundnut flour, edible soya flour, protein concentrates and isolates, vanaspati, margarine or refined edible oil of suitable type or butter or ghee or their mixture, albumin, lime water, lysine, vitamins, spices and condiments or their extracts, fruit and fruit product (Candied and crystallized or glazed), nuts, nut products, oligofructose (max 15%) and vinegar.
They must conform to standards
Alcoholic acidity – Not be more than equivalent of 7.5ml.
(With 90 per cent alcohol) N NaOH per 100 g of dried substances
Ash insoluble in dilute HCL on dry weight basis —
(i) Bread except masala bread or fruit bread -Not more than 0.1 per cent
(ii) Masala bread or fruit bread – Not more than 0.2 per cent
Bread must be free from dirt, insect and insect fragments, larvae, rodent hairs and added colouring matter except any permitted food colours present as a carryover colour in accordance with the provision in regulation 3.1.17, in raw material used in the products.
Both biscuits and bread may contain Oligofructose (dietary fibres) up to 15% maximum subject to label declaration under labelling of Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011.
As per the recent amendment from FSSAI, Oligofructose has also been allowed to be used in various food products.
Rajendra kumar Kanchinadham says
I would like to get FSSR standards for Biscuits and Raw materials like whole wheat flour, white flour, sugar, invert syrup, coconut powder, cashew nuts, skim milk powder etc.