Robert B. Fast
Breakfast Cereals and How They are Made, Second Edition
Pages 17-54
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1094/1891127152.002
ISBN: 1-891127-15-2
Abstract
Ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereals are processed grain formulations suitable for human consumption without further cooking in the home. They are relatively shelf-stable, lightweight, and convenient to ship and store. They are made primarily from corn, wheat, oats, or rice, in about that order of the quantities produced, usually with added flavor and fortifying ingredients.
Hot breakfast cereals, on the other hand, are made primarily from oats or wheat; those made from corn or rice are of minor importance, being produced in relatively small quantities. The original hot cereals required cooking in the home before they were ready for consumption, but now some varieties are preprocessed so that they are ready for consumption with the addition of either hot water or milk to the cereal in the bowl.
RTE cereals originated in the United States in the latter part of the nineteenth century. At first developed and used as healthful vegetarian foods in a clinical context, they soon caught on with the general population, and an entire industry was thereby spawned (Fast, 1999). Their processing typically involves first cooking the grain with flavor materials and sweeteners. Sometimes the more heat-stable nutritional fortifying agents are added before cooking. Two general cooking methods are employed in the industry—direct steam injection into the grain mass in rotating batch vessels and continuous extrusion cooking. Both of these cooking operations and the equipment commonly used are discussed in detail in Chapter 3.
Most RTE cereals may be grouped into 12 general categories for discussion of their manufacturing processes: 1) flaked cereals (corn flakes, wheat flakes, and rice flakes), including extruded flakes, 2) gun-puffed whole grains, 3) extruded gun-puffed cereals, 4) shredded whole grains, 5) extruded and other shredded cereals, 6) oven-puffed cereals, 7) granola cereals, 8) extruded expanded cereals, 9) baked cereals, 10) compressed flake biscuits, 11) muesli-type products, and 12) filled bite-size shredded wheat. Also included in this chapter is a brief discussion of breakfast cereal types of products manufactured for use as ingredients in other foods.
