High-pressure foaming of pizza

A novel breadmaking method via physical foaming was recently developed on the laboratory scale, in which a well-defined pressure history is applied to a dough at a high temperature, ensuring at the same time leavening (here, foaming) and baking. To make the scale-up possible, however, a deeper understanding of the process is needed, specifically in relation to how physical foaming affects the mechanism of bubble formation in dough (aeration vs nucleation) and how each of the processing parameters affects the final baked product. In the present work, we get insights into bubble dissolution happening as a consequence of the application of pressure, and we meticulously study the effect on the final volume and morphology of the process parameters, namely, saturation time, maximum pressure and pressure drop rate. In the case of the saturation time and pressure drop rate, a non-linear influence is observed in the analyzed experimental range, while the final volume shows an expected monotonic increase with the highest applied pressure. The effectiveness of the method and the possible extension to a pilot scale are also discussed.