ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD) — Food Processing Technology, Food Safety & Quality, Processing and Food Engineering · India · ICAR through the National Testing Agency
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersMaking sugar from cane and beet, non-centrifugal sugars such as jaggery, alternative sweeteners, and the sugar and chocolate confectionery built on them.
In the exams: ICAR AIEEA-PG Code 18 Unit III (sugars and sweets); GATE XE-G Section 3 (cocoa); ICAR AICE 35.a Unit 2 (confectionery products)
ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD) — Food Processing Technology, Food Safety & Quality, Processing and Food Engineering
35.a Unit 2 names confectionery products. Expect deeper questions on crystallisation in the metastable zone, glass transition and stickiness of sugar glasses, cocoa butter polymorphism and fat bloom mechanisms, chocolate rheology and emulsifiers, Salmonella in low-moisture foods, and sugar reduction with polyols and high-intensity sweeteners.
How our questions for ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF spread across the units of Sugar, Sweeteners, Chocolate & Confectionery Technology. Difficulty: 0 easy, 9 medium, 19 hard.
| Chocolate manufacture: refining, conching and tempering | 5 | |
| Sugar by-products: molasses, bagasse and press mud | 3 | |
| Glucose syrups, invert sugar and high-fructose syrups | 3 | |
| Sugar alcohols and high-intensity sweeteners | 3 | |
| Fat bloom and sugar bloom | 3 | |
| Sugarcane and sugar beet as raw materials | 2 | |
| Cane sugar manufacture: extraction, clarification, evaporation and crystallisation | 2 | |
| Jaggery and other non-centrifugal sugars | 2 | |
| Sugar confectionery: hard-boiled sweets, toffee, fondant and gums | 2 | |
| Confectionery quality and shelf life | 2 | |
| Refining and specialty sugars | 1 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
Why does post-harvest inversion of cane sucrose reduce the quantity of sugar a factory can make, beyond the sucrose directly lost?
D. More non-sucrose carries sucrose into molasses
Glucose and fructose are non-sucrose solids that stay in the mother liquor and, with other impurities, hold sucrose in solution, so more sucrose leaves in final molasses. They do not co-crystallise, they tend to lower rather than raise pH on heating, and no conversion back to sucrose occurs.
Further reading: Chen and Chou, Cane Sugar Handbook
Vacuum pans boil syrup at reduced pressure and moderate temperature mainly to
C. Limit colour and inversion
Lower boiling temperature reduces Maillard and caramel colour and the inversion of sucrose. Lower temperature reduces, not increases, solubility, it lowers rather than raises the boiling point, and calcium salts are not removed by boiling.
Further reading: Hugot, Handbook of Cane Sugar Engineering
Distillery spent wash from molasses fermentation is difficult to dispose of mainly because it has
D. A very high organic load
Spent wash (vinasse) is acidic, dark and has a very high BOD and COD, so it needs anaerobic digestion, concentration and incineration, composting or controlled land application. It is not low in solids, and fat is not its problem.
Further reading: Hugot, Handbook of Cane Sugar Engineering
Compared with a 42 DE syrup, a 63 DE glucose syrup used in confectionery is
C. Sweeter and more hygroscopic
Higher DE means more glucose and maltose: more sweetness, hygroscopicity, browning and fermentability, with lower viscosity and less body. The other statements describe lower-DE syrups.
Further reading: BeMiller and Whistler, Starch: Chemistry and Technology
A confectioner replaces all sucrose in a hard candy with a high-intensity sweetener and water. Why does this fail?
A. Sucrose forms the bulk and glassy body
In hard candy the sugar is the product: it forms the amorphous glass and nearly all the mass. A high-intensity sweetener gives sweetness only, so a bulk replacer such as isomalt or maltitol is needed. Bitterness depends on the sweetener and level, and solubility is not the issue.
Further reading: Nabors (ed.), Alternative Sweeteners
Approved high-intensity sweeteners and their maximum use levels in a given food are set by
D. Each market's national or regional authority
JECFA and regional bodies assess safety and set acceptable daily intakes, but each national or regional authority decides which sweeteners are permitted in which foods and at what levels, so lists differ between markets. There is no single binding worldwide list.
Further reading: Nabors (ed.), Alternative Sweeteners
Which formulation change helps retard fat bloom in chocolate?
C. Adding a small proportion of milk fat
Milk fat and certain hard fats slow the polymorphic transition and bloom of cocoa butter. Sugar particle size, adding water (which would thicken the chocolate) and conching temperature do not retard fat bloom.
Further reading: Beckett, The Science of Chocolate
Raw sugar has much colour trapped inside the crystals, not only in the surface film. Affination will
B. Remove the surface film but not the included colour
Affination washes off the molasses film with a saturated syrup that does not dissolve the crystal, so colour inside the crystal remains and must be removed after melting by clarification and decolourisation. It does not dissolve the crystals or concentrate colour.
Further reading: Chen and Chou, Cane Sugar Handbook
Acesulfame potassium and aspartame are often used together in soft drinks because
D. The blend tastes sweeter than the sum of its parts
The two sweeteners show sweetness synergy, so less of each is needed, and the blend has a more sugar-like taste profile. They do not cancel calories, phenylalanine comes from aspartame, and acesulfame potassium is already heat-stable.
Further reading: Nabors (ed.), Alternative Sweeteners
Cane juice containing dextran from post-harvest deterioration is analysed by polarimetry. The pol reading tends to
A. Overstate sucrose, as dextran is dextrorotatory
Dextran rotates polarised light strongly to the right, so it adds to the reading and inflates pol and apparent purity. It is not laevorotatory or inactive, and it does not absorb the light.
Further reading: Chen and Chou, Cane Sugar Handbook
Ten here, 28 in the app. The Laisha app has every practice question we have written to ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF in this subject, marked as you go, with timed papers, a jump-to-unanswered list and a certificate when you pass at 70 per cent.
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