Oven-baked French fries with deep fry taste and feel

摘要

The present invention relates to French fried potatoes produced from an oven that approximate the attributes and characteristics of French fries that have been finished by deep fat frying. The oven-finished French fries of the present invention can be differentiated from commercial and prior-art oven fries in that they possess a combination of attributes, in particular, bulk moisture, total fat, internal moisture, surface water activity and a Texture Value, that renders them virtually indistinguishable from deep fried French fries. The oven-finished French fries comprise from about 32 % to about 50 % bulk moisture, from about 8 % to about 25 % total fat, from about 55 % to about 80 % internal moisture content, a surface water activity of less than or equal to about 0.55, and a Texture Value (maximum force [grams] or area under the force deformation curve [gram sec] within the first one-third of a specific compression test) of at least about 200.