E-Delivery

out the problem with the texture. We ended up adding potato starch to the red len l flour. The red len l flour is 23% of the recipe, so it is s ll the major ingredient." Alberta Pulse Growers then provided research funding for a project to improve the candy's texture and shelf life. "Jean's pulse-based licorice has seen great improvement through extended bench-top and scale-up product development trials," said Olivia Thompson, Product/Process Development Technologist at Alberta Agriculture's Food Processing Development Centre (FPDC). "We found that the drying parameters of the licorice made a substan al difference in the quality and texture of the product. The black licorice has successfully been through a scale-up run in the FPDC's pilot plant and is on track for retail sale in the upcoming months." The project included a slightly sour cherry red licorice and a tradi onal black licorice made with blackstrap molasses which Purschke expects will appeal most to the genera on that remembers the black licorice pipes. "I was able to source the molasses from a supplier in New Brunswick, so I will be able to source everything from Canadian sources which is exactly what I wanted," said Purschke, whose brother grows field peas near Ponoka and brother-in-law grows pulses in Saskatchewan. At press me, Purschke said one more trial run was in the works for the red licorice before produc on was due to start in the fall. This will allow for the licorice to be ready for sale at the Christmas markets where she sells her fudge. The licorice will also be available for ordering through her website www.aun ejeansfudge.com. "I'm not intending to go right into retail stores at first," Purschke said, adding that she is exploring op ons to make the no gluten added licorice available to be ordered through online grocery delivery services that offer local products. "This is all on the advice of Alberta Agriculture. They have been a tremendous help. I never would have got this far without them. And without the Alberta Pulse Growers – they were really the backbone of this project." Purschke said that her licorice will con nue to be produced at the Food Processing Development Centre for about two years, but the next challenge will be "when the scien sts are no longer holding my hand, but they supply fabulous training and support." Food Scien st Dr. Kevin Swallow, was excited from the outset to work with Purschke on incorpora ng pulses into a delicious, no gluten added licorice at the Food Processing Development Centre in Leduc. "The original plan was to make a gluten-free licorice that would appeal to celiacs and the general popula on," he said. "Since the FPDC processes many types of food products, the licorice cannot be labelled as gluten- free as there may be a chance of cross-contamina on, rather is labelled as 'no gluten added', meaning the ingredients used do not contain gluten. We were also fortunate to have an enthusias c client wan ng to partner with us to develop this product. The bonus for this project was that there are limited op ons for gluten-free licorice on the market in Canada." He added that pulses offer good func onality and taste and the team was able to develop black and cherry licorice made with len l flour that were well received by sensory evalua on panelists. Like most product development projects, there were some setbacks when replacing wheat flour with anything else. "The lessons learned during this project will be used to develop other products using pulses," Swallow added. "The other great news is that the client wants to put this product on the market as soon as possible. It is a great success story." Pouring raw ingredients into the ke le. Samples of the red cherry and tradi onal black licorice. P U L S E C R O P N E W S F A L L 2 0 1 8 | 3 5

• Cover