Food and Nutrition – December Snippet

At the beginning of the semester we were set a brief of developing a product incorporating the ingredient from fruit and nut manufacturing giant Whitworths called ‘AppleSoft’, with Tesco in mind as our target market.

The start of the module introduced us to various processes required for developing a new product including how to generate ideas, how to cost products and what to bear in mind when considering packaging. As the module moved on we were thrown into the kitchens where our ideas started to materialise. With different ideas, students went about the development in different ways. I for example chose to create savoury biscotti following research and continue to adjust the recipe to perfection. Other people chose multiple products to create over the weeks and chose from the one they preferred the most.

So… savoury biscotti… (these are horrendous but all part of the process).

I originally wanted to create a stuffing as I know the combination of pork and apple work well together and thought it would be a really good way to show off our main ingredient. HOWEVER, with things like shelf life, food safety, cost and nutrition in mind that quickly changed. I still wanted to play with similar festive flavours so went for a sage and onion stuffing including the AppleSoft, which then changed into a sage and onion biscotti, which then changed into a parmesan biscotti, which then changed into a sweet biscotti. So many changes, most of which were small changes in quantity of ingredients but eventually I’d end up scrapping the recipe completely and trying another.

EVENTUALLY after all the trials and errors, I got down to a recipe that I really liked. A pistachio and cherry biscotti – gluten and dairy free and very flavourful. The process has been documented and will end up being part of both my report and presentation. The aim is to help us with potential future presentations if we choose to work in the product development field – which is where I would love to be!

For any more information on the course head to the UCB website.

Mischke