Patent Application
20070042090
None
None
Not applicable.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a frozen beverage, drink or snack such as a smoothie or the like and more particularly to a combination of frozen ingredients presented in a kit or package form for making a high quality smoothie either at home or in a restaurant setting.
2. Description of Related Art
While the term smoothie means different things to different people, the classic smoothie includes a creamy dairy product such as yogurt, a sorbet or a sherbet blended together with fresh fruits, vegetables and a liquid such as juice, or milk, it being understood that other flavors or ingredients may also be added. A high quality smoothie characteristically is most desirably quite thick, similar in thickness to a milkshake and is served very cold.
The most common recipes for smoothies include fresh or frozen fruit, yogurt and a liquid such as milk, soda, fruit juice or vegetable juice. Typically the ingredients including the fruit, liquid and optional additives such as flavorings, protein powders and the like are put into a blender with ice. The blender is run for a time sufficient to bring all ingredients together into a thick, smooth, chilled and preferably very cold consistency. The blend then is poured into a glass or cup and consumed by sucking through a straw, by spooning or drinking.
There is a relatively large number of variations on the basic smoothie recipe, but none is particularly convenient for making a high quality smoothie at home in that typical homemade smoothies may or may not be consistent in quality or remain as cold and thick over time as those made by a commercial establishment. In this respect it is unlikely that typical households have the high-powered smoothie blending equipment or cooling equipment often found in a commercial establishment to produce a product that is consistently smooth in texture and that is sufficiently chilled so it remains thick and refreshingly cold over time.
Also, both in home and in commercial environments, ice often is added to the blender to produce the desired deep refreshing coldness of a smoothie. Such use of ice, even in a commercial establishment, may result in the smoothie having a crystalline or granular texture if the smoothie is not properly blended. For example, if the blending time is too short, the ice may not be ground into small enough particle sizes leaving the smoothie with a granular mouth feel. While a grainy mouth feel is not necessarily objectionable, a more desirable smoothie attribute is as its name suggests, a smooth mouth feel.
Thickness is another particular attribute that is difficult to obtain in a non-commercial setting. In a commercial establishment, a gum, starch or other thickener may be added to thicken the smoothie. The most common ingredient for thickening a smoothie made at home is banana but banana adds a flavor that may not be desirable. Accordingly, while it is certainly possible to make a decent smoothie either in a commercial establishment or at home, making a high quality smoothie in a truly simple manner that is both cold and that has a smooth mouth feel remained an elusive goal, until now.
Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide ingredients for making a smoothie that simplify previously known methods of making a smoothie without reducing the quality of the resulting smoothie and, in fact, producing a superior smoothie.
It is another object of this invention to provide a smoothie making kit including essential ingredients that can be blended without the use of ice to produce a smoothie that is cold and that has a smooth mouth feel.
A further object is to provide a method for making a smoothie using frozen ingredients and a liquid that produces a cold, smooth textured smoothie with out the need to add ice.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide smoothie making ingredients including at least yogurt and fruit both in the form of frozen-solid pieces that can be stored in a frozen condition at conventional home freezer temperatures for a relatively long time and which can be assembled into a smoothie easily and quickly when desired.
It is further an object of this invention to provide a number of variations on the basic process to substitute flavorings for fresh fruit and/or to combine the fruit and dairy ingredients into a few frozen ingredients or even into a single ingredient to even further simplify the process of making a smoothie.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a frozen ingredient such as, but not limited to, yogurt in the form of small frozen solid chips, pellets, cubes or flakes to which fruit and a liquid such as fruit or vegetable juice or soda can be added, and the mixture blended to create a smoothie.
Briefly stated the present invention in one aspect thereof comprises a package of smoothie making ingredients in a frozen state. In one embodiment the package comprises a kit including a yogurt in the form of a plurality of frozen-solid pieces including, but not limited to, chunks, pellets, cubes, chips or flakes. Also in the package are individually quick frozen (IQF) whole fruits or fruit pieces such as, for example, berries or whole berries, such as strawberries, raspberries or blueberries or pieces of larger fruits and vegetables such as chunks of pineapple, mango or banana or carrots among others. The package comprising a smoothie making kit, after purchase, can be stored in a conventional home freezer until the consumer desires to make the smoothie.
The package or smoothie making kit preferably contains a measured amount of the frozen ingredients sufficient to make a particular size of smoothie. If the package contains one serving size, the entire frozen contents of the package is added to a blender along with a prescribed volume of liquid, preferably milk or juice. Running the blender transforms these frozen ingredients to a smoothie that has the desirable smoothie attributes of being cold and smooth.
Because the yogurt and fruit ingredients of the smoothie-making package are frozen solid, there is no need to add ice cubes or crushed ice when making the smoothie. Eliminating the addition of ice provides the added benefit of ensuring a smoother mouth feel to the blended product by avoiding ice particles and also reduces the amount of liquid that is eventually added so the smoothie maintains a thick consistency that is not watered down by melting ice.
As noted above, a primary ingredient for making a smoothie according to the present invention comprises pieces of yogurt frozen solid in the form of pellets, cubes, chips or the like. A conventional yogurt may be frozen solid at temperatures found in home freezers, typically no less than 0° F., so that in one form, the present invention comprises a yogurt that is in the form of frozen solid pellets, cubes, chips or the like in a kit together with other frozen smoothie making ingredients. Unless otherwise specified, the term “yogurt’ is intended to include any one or more of yogurt, a low fat yogurt or a non fat yogurt as defined in 21 C.F.R. 131.
For purposes of enhancing flavor and texture, one or more ingredients such as sugar can be added to the yogurt to provide a yogurt-based formulation that is frozen solid. The addition of sugar as a flavor enhancer can depress the freezing point of the formulation to such an extent that a smoothie made with the yogurt formulation will melt quickly when at room temperature. In this case a preferred yogurt formulation includes a higher percentage of water than found in most yogurts.
Several advantages result from adding water to facilitate freezing the yogurt solid particularly in the case of a yogurt formulation where the yogurt is but one ingredient and the yogurt formulation includes other ingredients such as sugar, heavy cream or other flavor enhancers that may depress the freezing temperature of the yogurt formulation. In such cases the added water will act to raise the freezing temperature to insure that the yogurt formulation is frozen solid at conventional home freezer temperatures (usually not below 0° F.).
Using pieces of frozen solid yogurt or yogurt formulation allows the creation of a smoothie having a desirable consistency and cold temperature without the addition of ice to the blender. The amount of water that might be added to cause the yogurt or yogurt formulation to freeze solid for making the frozen solid pieces preferably is less than the amount of water that would be added as ice in the conventional preparation of a smoothie.
Because the frozen-solid pieces of the yogurt or yogurt formulation have an initial temperature well below freezing, the pieces fracture rather than melt during blending and this improves the quality of the smoothie. Consequently the smoothie made with the frozen-solid yogurt pieces or frozen-solid yogurt formulation pieces is less diluted and therefore desirably thicker than a smoothie made with unfrozen yogurt and ice.
As used herein, the term “frozen-solid piece” refers to a frozen state similar to that of frozen water or ice wherein the frozen body is frangible. Accordingly, frozen-solid in this context is the state achieved and maintained by cooling to temperatures conventionally found in a home freezer and in particular to temperatures below 32° F. but not below about 0° F. In contrast ice cream at such temperatures even though considered frozen, has a smooth texture, can still be scooped and is not frangible.
In similar respects a “frozen” yogurt as sold at an ice cream parlor or franchised outlet is somewhat of a misnomer in that such a “frozen” yogurt, while very cold, is not solid but is still able to flow and usually is dispensed by pumping into a cone or container. Accordingly such a frozen yogurt does not meet the definition of “frozen-solid” as used herein.
Accordingly, the present invention may be characterized in another aspect thereof by a smoothie making kit including selected proportions of frozen solid pieces of a yogurt formulation including freezing temperature depressing additives and added water packaged together with selected proportions of frozen fruit preferably individually quick frozen (IQF) whole fruits or berries or individually quick frozen fruit or vegetable pieces all contained in a package for mixing with a recommended amount of liquid such as juice, soda or milk to be added to the package contents at the time the smoothie is made.
After purchase, the package comprising the smoothie making kit can be stored in a conventional home freezer until a smoothie is desired. Then, the contents of the kit are simply emptied into a blender along with prescribed amount of juice, milk or other liquid to make the desired flavor of smoothie.
While any suitable plain or flavored yogurt may be used in a yogurt based formulation according to the present invention, it has been found that a plain or unflavored, non-fat yogurt is preferred. In this respect a plain non-fat yogurt allows greater leeway for adjusting flavor and texture than say a full fat yogurt. For example, starting with a non fat yogurt, various ingredients can be added to adjust flavor and texture such as sugar, heavy cream and thickeners. A conventional non-fat plain yogurt contains less than 0.5% milkfat and not less than 8.25% milk solids (not fat) with the balance water. In a preferred embodiment according to the present invention, a yogurt formulation is prepared using non-fat yogurt and other ingredients such as one or more of flavor enhancers, an emulsifier, gum, a stabilizer and added water.
Accordingly, in another aspect, the present invention may be characterized by a frozen-solid yogurt formulation containing a water content higher than normally found in a plain non-fat yogurt that may be blended with fresh or frozen fruit and a liquid such as juice, soda or milk in the absence of ice to produce a smoothie having the desirable attributes of a smooth texture or mouth feel, a thick consistency and being very cold.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the frozen yogurt chips or cubes substantially as described herein may be provided separately from the frozen fruit. The formulation of the frozen yogurt chips is preferably as already described. Consumers can purchase the chips, measure a suitable amount, add frozen fruit and liquid and blend to form a smoothie substantially as already described.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention the juice, which otherwise would be added to the frozen ingredients at the time of blending the smoothie can be provided in frozen concentrated form so that the customer can prepare the smoothie by simply adding water.
Referring to the drawing,
Also included in the package, preferably in the freezer bag 26, are individually quick frozen (IQF) pieces of fruit including, but not limited to strawberries 28 and/or blueberries 29. Other ingredients optionally included in the bag depending upon the desired flavor, are banana chunks 30 and chunks of cut-up pieces of larger fruits 32 such as, but not limited to, pieces of peach, mango and pineapple. As a further alternative, frozen chunks of a vegetable may be included or used in place of a fruit.
While pieces of the IQF fruit 28, 29, 30 and 32 are preferred, the package also may contain in addition or in place of the IQF fruits, frozen cubes 34 of macerated fruits or fruit juices as shown in
If the package contains a single portion or serving, the entire contents of the package, still frozen, is placed into a blender along with a liquid such as milk, cream or juice. The blender then is operated to make the smoothie. If the package contains multiple portions, only a desired number of the frozen yogurt cubes 24 and pieces of IQF fruits 28 or fruit chunks 32 are removed from the freezer bag and put into a blender.
Frozen solid pieces of a yogurt, low fat yogurt or non fat yogurt can be used in the smoothie making process of the present invention. However, a smoothie based on a yogurt alone generally is less sweet, has less body and less flavor than a yogurt blended with sweeteners, starch, gum, emulsifiers and other food flavorings and texture enhancers. Accordingly, in a preferred embodiment, the frozen solid yogurt pieces comprise a yogurt-based formulation including yogurt and one or more of flavor enhancers and thickening agents together with an amount of added water to facilitate freezing the formulation to a solid. A suitable formulation preferably includes sugar and one or more of heavy cream, food starch, a flavoring, a thickener among others.
Referring to
The dry ingredients are added to the liquid and the mixture 14 is blended until well combined. The blended mixture then is heated as shown at 16 to about 180° F. to 185° F. and held at temperature for about 30 seconds. Heating the mixture is an optional but preferred step. In this respect heating pasteurizes the mixture and gels the starches used that are not pre-gelled.
The heated mixture is poured into any suitable divided container or tray 18. The tray is placed into a freezer 20 where it is maintained until the yogurt formulation is frozen solid to produce individual pieces 24. The pieces 24 can be of any convenient shape such as, but not limited to, cubes chips, irregular-shaped pieces, pellets, flakes of the like. Once removed from the tray, the frozen solid pieces 24 of yogurt formulation are packaged. The packaged pieces can be stored and maintained frozen at temperatures of between about 32° F. and about 0° F. for later sale or use.
One or more of the ingredients of the yogurt-based formulation, particularly the sugar, is known to depress freezing temperature. Accordingly, the amount of water that is one of the wet ingredients is an amount of water in addition to the given amount of water in the yogurt per se. This additional water has the function of raising the freezing temperature of the yogurt formulation so it will freeze to a frangible solid at a temperature of between about 32° F. and 0° F. If it is found that the formulation still does not freeze solid at the desired temperatures, a non-nutritive sweetener such as sucralose may replace some portion of the sugar used as a sweetener in the formulation.
To demonstrate the present invention, a yogurt based formulation was prepared using the ingredients as shown in Table I below:
*Lactic Acid, Sodium Citrate, Vanilla, and Xanthan Gum
As noted above a higher fat content yogurt could be used in the formulation, but a non fat yogurt affords a greater opportunity to adjust the taste and texture of the formulation. The dry and wet ingredients were separately blended and mixed, heated and frozen all as described above. After freezing, the individual cubes of frozen solid yogurt are removed from the tray and placed into a bag for freezer storage at a temperature of about 0° F.
In using the frozen solid pieces of the yogurt formulation of Table I, it was found that the pieces tended to melt rather quickly at room temperature. The result was the production of a smoothie, which had an acceptable taste but that did not retain a cold, thick consistence over time. The ease of melting was attributed to the fact that the amount of water added did not raise the freezing temperature enough to offset the freezing temperature depressing action of the sugar.
Accordingly, a second yogurt based formulation was prepared having the ingredients as set out in Table II.
*Lactic Acid, Sodium Citrate, Vanilla, and Xanthan Gum
In this yogurt based formulation the amount of sugar was reduced and replaced by a small amount of sucralose while increasing the amount of added water. The result was a yogurt-based formulation that readily froze to a solid and that melted more slowly at room temperature than the formulation of Table I.
Based on these and other tests, it is believed that a suitable yogurt formulation that can be frozen solid and maintained in a frozen solid state at temperatures in the range of about 32° F. to about 0° F. and then subsequently used to prepare a smoothie having desirable cold and smooth characteristics with out the use of ice comprises by weight about 35% to 45% yogurt (preferably a non fat yogurt), about 7% and 11% sugar, about 10% to 15% heavy cream and about 25% to 35% water in addition to the water content of the yogurt.
To prepare a smoothie several of the frozen solid pieces of the Table II yogurt based formulation are placed into a blender together with pieces of IQF fruit and without ice. The blender is operated to blend the ingredients producing a thick, smooth frozen consistency that can be spooned or sucked through a straw and that melts slowly at room temperature.
The amounts of frozen-solid yogurt or yogurt-based formulation, frozen fruit and liquid added to the blender are matters of choice. However a suitable component ration is about ⅓ yogurt and ⅔ fruit blended 50/50 with an equal amount of liquid. For example, a smoothie having all the desirable attributes is made by blending about 80 to about 108 grams of the yogurt pieces with about 232 to 260 grams of fruit with an amount of liquid about equal to the amount of the yogurt/fruit mixture.
While a preferred embodiment of the invention has been described, it should be appreciated that the mixture of ingredients in the package 22 may take any one of several forms. For example, the package may contain only pieces of the frozen yogurt formulation. A smoothie then is made using a prescribed number of pieces of the frozen yogurt formulation along with any other ingredient desired by the consumer. Moreover the yogurt formulation may include a non nutritive sweetener as a replacement for at least a portion of the sugar to lessen the freezing-temperature-depression effect of any sugar that is added while still obtaining the desired sweetness.
Rather than adding juice or milk to the frozen contents of the package, the package 22 may contain cubes of frozen juice or other liquid concentrate 34 as shown in
While the present invention has been described using a yogurt or yogurt formulation as a desirable smoothie ingredient, other non yogurt combinations also are possible. Yogurt is preferred because it has an inherent thickness not provided by milk alone. In this respect the adding of a bacterial culture to milk, skim or skimmed milk, cream or mixtures thereof and heating allows the bacteria to grow. This growth produces acid from the lactose and reduces the pH of the milk. The lowered pH (generally to a range of 4.1 to 4.6) destabilizes the micellar casin component of the milk causing the milk to coagulate and thicken to a desired consistency. A desired consistency for purposes of the present invention is a product having a value of approximately 10.5 to 12.5 on the Bostwick scale.
Accordingly, while yogurt is a desired ingredient, any dairy or non dairy product or mixtures thereof having a desired flavor and thickness and preferably a pH approaching that of a yogurt could be used in place of the yogurt (provided the flavor and freezing properties are acceptable).
The preferred thickness, for example, on the Bostwick Scale is between about 10.5 and 12.5 cm at 140° F. for 10 seconds and most preferably about 11.5 cm. A preferred pH range is about 4.0 to 4.5 and the preferred total acidity is 0.90-0.99. Total acidity or TA determinations are measures of tartness. A total acidity measurement is a common measurement in the food industry and is done through titration and subsequent calculation wherein the results are reported in terms of the predominant acid. In the case of a yogurt or yogurt-based formulation, the TA would be expressed in terms of lactic acid.
