Impact of moisture content and age on the properties of microwaved shelf-stable puffed snacks made from Cheddar cheese

Microwave heating of certain foods (e.g., popcorn) can produce an expanded, puffed structure.During certain baking conditions, some cheeses (e.g., mozzarella) can form expanded structures (e.g., blisters on pizza).However, Cheddar cheese usually melts during heating instead of expanding.Our hypothesis is that by altering the proportions of moisture, protein, and fat content in cheese by drying, perhaps we can achieve a cheese composition or texture more favorable to expansion (i.e., less meltable) during microwave heating.A licensed Wisconsin cheesemaker made 4 batches (n = 4) of Cheddar cheese over a 90-d period.Cylinders (9 mm in height × 13 mm in diameter) were cut from the cheese at 7, 14, 30, 90, and 180 d of age during ripening at 4°C.These cylinders were dried for various periods in a Parmesan drying room (15.5°C, 70% relative humidity, ~10 m 3 /min air flow) to make partially dried cheeses with target moisture contents of 20%, 16%, and 12% (and thus, protein contents of 31.2%, 32.9%, and 34.3%, respectively).During heating, none of the partially dried cheese samples melted (loss tangent values