Worldwide, freshness and food safety are crucial elements for consumers. They make fewer visits to shops, spend less time in stores and have a tendency to stock up on certain products.
And at the same time, consumers shift towards more packed cakes for food safety concerns.
That is why we have gathered some tips and tricks to help you give a longer shelf life to your cakes. This allows you to meet consumers changing needs, while providing you more flexibility to your production schedule.
Tips & tricks for cakes with longer shelflife
3 main components will influence the shelf life of your cake:
- Hygiene conditions
- Ingredients used in the recipe
- Packaging
1. Hygiene
While hygiene standards are probably already part of your regular practices, it is an ideal time to strengthen (and keep) these practices. Further explore this topic in this article: Making Hygiene your bakery’s priority
2. Recipe
- Choose a cake recipe that keeps a moist texture over time. Satin Moist Cake keeps the texture of your product as of day 1 thanks to our enzymatic solutions, ACTI-Fresh inside.
- Opt for a filling that has a controlled water activity. This will limit the water migration to the cake dough and delay microbial growth. Cremfil Classic and Vivafil are the perfect solutions if you want to keep your cake fresh for a week or more. Moreover, using the filling before baking gives an extra protection in terms of food safety and shelflife. Both Cremfil Classic and Vivafil offer high bake stability, with limited water evaporation during baking.
- Reduce baking and cooling time to keep moistness and protect the cake’s softness
3. Packaging
- To give the cake an optimal shelf life, pack the cake when it reaches max 30°C inside. That way, you avoid the drying out of the product which directly influences the texture of the cake. Packing below 30°C reduces condensation and delays microbial growth.
- Choose a hermetic packaging. Opt for plastic rather than paper as it keeps better the water longer in the product.
- If you pack the product, do check local labelling recommendations
Are you looking for more information?
Shelf life extension is an effort to make food safe for longer periods, still keeping its original quality, texture and freshness.
To extend the shelf life of products, different ingredients and processes can be used.
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