Compass Point 2:

Additive-Free Additives I: Emulsifiers

It is pretty clear that additives, including traditional or “natural ”ones like leavening, salt, and natural flavorings, are the principal means of producing baked goods that are palatable and worth eating—especially Twinkies.

So before starting a search for additives that at least border on natural, let us generally categorize the major functions of additives and the food ingredients they modify. Note that some of the additives perform more than one function, and several are synergistic with each other, for greater combined effect than either separately:

Emulsifiers
Aids to blending dissimilar ingredients

• Calcium & Sodium Caseinates
• Cellulose Gum
• Egg yolk
• Modified Corn Starch
• Mono- and Diglycerides
• Polysorbate 60
• Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate
• Soy lecithin
• Soy protein isolate

The Sponge
Generate & retain leavening gases and blended-in air

• Wheat Flour (gluten)
• Sugars
• Fats including Mono- and Diglycerides
• Baking Powder
• Calcium & Sodium Caseinates
• Egg Yolk & White
• Sweet Whey
• Mechanical beating and aeration

Modifiers
Thicken, stabilize, texturize, improve handling

• Calcium sulfate
• Glucose
• Calcium & Sodium Caseinates
• Cellulose Gum & Modified Corn Starch
• Corn Flour and Corn Starch
• Corn dextrin
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Polysorbate 60
• Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate
• Soy flour
• Soy protein isolate
• Sweet Whey

Shelf Life
Acting “fresh”, even when it ain’t

• Calcium & Sodium Caseinates
• Corn dextrin
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Mono- and Diglycerides
• Polysorbate 60
• Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate
• Sorbic acid (preservative)
• Soy flour

 Food Replacers
Looks, tastes, and kinda acts close enough

• Artificial Flavors & Colors; (egg, milk, vanilla)
• Calcium & Sodium Caseinates: (fat, milk)
• Cellulose Gum & Modified Corn Starch (fat)
• High Fructose Corn Syrup (sugar)
• Soy flour (egg white)
• Soy protein isolate (egg & wheat)
• Corn starch (wheat)
• Sweet Whey: (egg, milk)

Consumer Perception
For an extraordinary sensory experience

• Natural flavors
• Natural colors
• Glucose
• Artificial Flavors & Colors
• Cellulose Gum & Modified Corn Starch

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I began my search for additive alternatives with Emulsifiers, asking a dozen or so (of several hundred) of the Big Dogs in the baking-supply industry whether they could supply natural, organic, non-GMO, Clean Label, or Whole Foods-Approved versions of the most common additives.

Quite a few ignored my emails and webform queries outright. One or two others demanded to know who I was, did I have any standing in the food processing industry, and could I please provide a list of name-brand clients to establish credibility?

But those who were not oblivious or frankly hostile to my inquiry sometimes were generally helpful, but might have to be asked several times for detailed additive data, recommended application rates, and how the additives would be declared on an ingredients label. I’m sorry to say that my search for natural additives was mostly futile.

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One notable exception was a very helpful fellow at TIC Gums in White Marsh, Maryland, who sent me a free sample of Gum Acacia powder for the NOT-winkie filling (?), and another of a Xanthan-Alginate-Guar hydrocolloid system as a thickener, stabilizer, and “mouthfeel” enhancer for the sponge cake. TIC Gums’ generosity in attention and sampling seems exceptional in this industry segment. When the formula trials begin, I intend to give TIC Gums a good shot at making it into the NOT-winkie.

Elsewhere on the emulsifier front, I concentrated on finding non-soy, non-allergenic, non-GMO versions of lecithin, which of course is present in egg yolk. It might be handy to play with egg content, depending on how the flavors are working, so additional lecithin on-hand must be got.

But it seems that the brown, goopy soy lecithin liquid in health food stores is not very effective in baked goods and, depending on how it was extracted from vegetable oils, can leave anything it’s added to with a off-flavor.

I found a likely lecithin supplier in Austrade, who seem more on the ball than others in addressing the growing non-soy, non-GMO market. They have one product that might do the trick, a hydrolyzed sunflower lecithin that is supposed to disperse better and work at lower application rates.

Austrade very kindly provided me a sample, which was labeled as having been produced in Spain. Considering the wretched shape of the Spanish economy, trading with them could be one bit of globalism worth pursuing—at least until domestic organic sunflower growers and processors catch a clue.

Coming up:
Compass Point 2: Additive-Free Additives II: The Sponge

Beekeeping for Poets

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