No abstract

The aim of this study was to show how microbial transglutaminase (mTG) can be used as an effective texturemodifi er for two popular Hungarian products: Trappist cheese and frankfurter. In both cases we investigated how components of these products, milkfat in cheese and phosphate in frankfurter, can be substituted by mTG. Therefore, Trappist cheese samples were produced from cow milk of 2.8%, 3.5%, and 5% milk fat. The effect of ripening was evaluated with Texture Profi le Analysis (TPA) and sensory evaluation (scoring test, 10 trained panellists). Springiness and cohesiveness values were signifi cantly higher by enzyme-treated semi-hard cheese samples at lower milk fat levels. Sensory evaluation showed that the enzyme-treatment led to higher scores by cheese samples made from cow milk of 3.5% and 5% milk fat. Frankfurter was made with 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, and 0.7% tetrasodium pyrophosphate, and partly enzyme-treated with 0.2% commercial mTG enzyme preparation. Our results showed that mTG is able to signifi cantly improve hardness and crunchiness by frankfurters made with 0.1% phosphate addition. Our sensory evaluation suggests that mTG and phosphate should be applied in combination in order to have a fi nal product with recognisably more homogeneous texture.