Abstract: Disclosed are food compositions and methods for preparing sugary coated puffed snack products upon simple heating of the food compositions in a consumer microwave oven. The food compositions comprise a plurality of puffable farinaceous dough puff pieces or pellets and a puffing media throughout which the puff pieces or pellets are dispersed. The puffing media comprises from about 40% to 95% by weight of a nutritive carbohydrate sweetening agent and from about 5% to 10% moisture. The weight ratio of puffing media to puff pieces ranges between about 4:1 to 0.1:1. The water activity of the food compositions is less than about 0.75. The method for making a coated snack comprises forming a gelatinized dough, shaping the dough into pieces, partially drying the pieces, dispersing the pieces throughout a puffing media to form a puffing media/piece matrix, and microwave heating the matrix to simultaneously puff the pieces and to enrobe the pieces with the fluidized puffing media.

Abstract: Disclosed are food compositions and methods for preparing cheese-coated puffed snack products upon simple heating of the food compositions in a consumer microwave oven. The food compositions comprise a plurality of puffable farinaceous dough puff pieces or pellets in a puffing medium throughout which the puff pieces or pellets are dispersed. The puffing medium comprises from about 30% to 90%, by weight of the puffing medium, of an edible fatty triglyceride and from about 10% to 60% by weight of dehydrated cheese solids. The puffing medium contains no more than about 2% by weight reducing sugars. The weight ratio of puffing medium to puff pieces ranges between about 0.2:1 to 1.3:1.