Hello,
I work as a baker for a company that makes teething biscuits for babies. I have been tasked with finding a way to make the biscuits harder to break. So basically I am trying to make something safe to eat but too strong to break. The aim is for a teething child to chew on the biscuit but for it not to crumble or break in the child's mouth. The ingredients are bakers flour, cooked wheatgerm and water. The dough is worked quite dry from a crumbed state and is worked by hand with the aid of a pastry brake. The actual baking is a low temp 3 hour process.
At current my main theory is that a higher protein flour would give us more gluten and increase the strength of the final result, is this the case?
Any input, even if only to direct me to more reading material so I can better understand what I am dealing with would be greatly appreciated.
Dear Ross
it is better you take higher dry gluten percentage flour (11 to 12.5%) and try to do this. I think you may be doing this biscuit in stick form so that babies can hold and chew. Also please note that you should add sufficient water to develop gluten when you work on the dough. If the water is not there gluten formation may not be complete and it may break. So please see that water is available and using strong flour.