Abstract: A cooked snack food or cooked edible core material, such as roasted nuts, or baked snack chips, while still hot from the cooking step, is tumbled and sprayed with an aqueous solution of a water-soluble, film-forming coating component, such as a maltodextrin. The tumbling and spraying is performed immediately after cooking so that latent heat from the cooked edible core material, reduces the moisture content of the applied aqueous solution to form a dry, thin film coating of the coating component on the edible core material. The need for a separate, subsequent drying step or forced air drying equipment to reduce the moisture content is eliminated by evaporative cooling of the hot cooked snacks and flashing of the applied aqueous coating solution. The dry, coated cooked snack may be cooled to obtain a snack food having a thin, uniform coating which enhances appearance, texture, taste and shelf life.

Abstract: A process is provided for making reduced fat, low fat or no-fat graham-based crackers and flour for the production thereof. The process for making the flour includes providing whole wheat berries having a moisture content of from about 15% by weight to about 20% by weight, radiating the berries with infrared (IR) energy, optionally maintaining the berries at an elevated temperature of from about 80° C. to about 110° C. for a period of time up to about one hour, and cooling, drying and comminuting the treated berries. The moisture content of the berries can be adjusted by moistening or tempering the berries prior to treatment with IR energy. The moisture content, optional tempering conditions, amount of irradiated IR energy, the elevated temperature, and the various treatment periods are sufficient to inactivate lipase and lipoxygenase in the berries yet insufficient to gelatinize more than about 20% of the starch in the berries.