17 Apr 2026
In the baking industry, "freshness" is more than just an expiry date, it is a sensation over time. For a cake to remain enjoyable, it must maintain a delicate balance of texture and moisture from the moment it’s packaged until the end of its shelf life.
Cécile Petit, Puratos's R&D Sensory Manager, highlights the importance of measuring freshness and sensory evaluation in cake development. Expert sensory judges assess freshness properties, while preference tests with the Sensobus capture consumer perception. Collaborate with Puratos to optimize freshness and profitability using modular cake ingredients.
Meet Cécile Petit, the R&D Sensory Manager at Puratos Headquarters in Belgium. With over 20 years of experience in food perception, she leads the sensory analysis team and lab. Cécile plays a pivotal role in developing Sensory Analysis within the Puratos Group and ensures adherence to internal guidelines and best practices.
The global concept of freshness
What does “freshness” mean from a sensory perspective?
It is a combination of several different factors that we call a global concept. Freshness isn't just one sensation, it’s a balance of softness, moistness, and cohesiveness.
When a consumer picks up a cake, they first judge it by how soft it feels to the touch. Once they take a bite, they look for that sense of humidity (the moistness) and how well the cake holds together (cohesiveness). If it crumbles too easily or feels dry, the perception of freshness is lost. In the baking industry, our goal is to maintain that specific “just-baked” profile throughout the product's entire shelf life.
Why is it important to measure freshness?
Primarily to ensure that long-shelf-life cakes stay appealing until the very last day. Occasionally, customers may have specific requirements regarding cake texture. In such cases, the goal may be to achieve a certain level of moistness, reduce crumbliness, or enhance the softness. Measuring freshness allows us to assess our progress in meeting these objectives, providing valuable insights for future product development.
The human-machine partnership
How do you make sensorial evaluations of the different parameters of freshness?
At Puratos, our expert sensory judges use a combination of tactile (touch) and gustatory (taste) evaluations. It is a highly disciplined process where they act as objective measuring tools. We break it down into three specific actions:
- Softness: Judges apply a specific amount of pressure to the cake to measure its initial resistance.
- Moistness: First, judges feel the crumb to gauge surface humidity. Then, they taste the cake to perceive how moist or dry it feels during consumption.
- Cohesiveness: Judges observe the cake both when touched and when bitten. They are looking specifically at how well the crumb holds together versus how much it crumbles.
Why do we need sensory evaluation?
We require sensory measurements to complement our analytical results. Unlike machines, humans cannot always perceive texture parameters accurately, nor can machines fully replicate the way we touch and eat a cake. Therefore, evaluating Cake Freshness necessitates a blend of mechanical and organoleptic methods. Mechanically, we use instruments to measure cake hardness, resiliency, and cohesiveness.
However, certain parameters like cohesiveness and resiliency do not always exhibit a direct logical correlation between sensory and instrumental measurements from the texturometer. In particular, important factors like moistness cannot be directly measured instrumentally. Hence, we continue to conduct both sensory and instrumental measurements in tandem to assess cake freshness comprehensively.
Evaluating cake freshness requires a blend of both mechanical and sensory methods. In our labs, we use both:
- Mechanical tools: E.g. texturometers. These provide the digital readings for hardness, resilience, and cohesiveness. However, these readings don't always have a direct, logical correlation with what a person feels.
- Sensory panels: Our judges act as the final check. Crucially, a factor like moistness cannot be measured by a machine at all, it requires a trained human palate. We use both in tandem to get the full picture.
Can you explain specific challenges when instrument measurements disagree with sensory perception?
That is a big challenge. A machine can measure the physical force needed to compress a cake but it cannot perceive the experience of eating it. A cake might test well for softness on a machine, but a sensory judge might still find it dry or unappealing. For that reason, the sensory panel acts as the final check, ensuring the data matches the actual experience of the consumer.
Consumer perception and market trends
What about the consumer’s perception of freshness, how do you involve them in your testing?
Consumers lack the expertise of our expert judges, making it challenging for them to articulate and evaluate their sensations accurately. Due to this, they often struggle to distinguish texture from flavor, limiting the usefulness of asking them about specific freshness parameters. Because of this, we don’t ask consumers to rate specific technical parameters.
Instead, we focus on preference. We use the Sensobus, our mobile sensory lab, to meet consumers where they shop. By parking in high-traffic areas like supermarket lots, we can gather feedback from up to 300 consumers a day.
We might present them with two cakes (one standard, and one with an enhancer) and ask which one they prefer. This gives us clear, real-world data that helps us fine tune recipes to match what the market actually wants to buy.
Testing at home
For artisan or home bakers who don’t have access to a lab, what practical tests can they do in their own kitchens to track cake freshness?
Freshness is a subjective concept, but you can still evaluate it systematically by becoming your own “measuring tool”. The secret is to use your senses in a specific order. Most people jump straight to tasting, but by then, the sensations are too complex to isolate. I recommend a step-by-step approach:
Step 1: Scent
Before you take a bite, smell the cake. Is the aroma intense or weak? Do you smell specific notes like eggs, sugar, or caramel? A loss of aroma intensity is often the first sign that a cake is losing its freshness.
Step 2: Touch
Take a slice and touch the crumb. Does it feel soft? Does it leave a slight fatty residue on your fingers? Most importantly, do you feel "surface humidity"? If the crumb feels dry to the touch, it will definitely feel dry in the mouth.
Step 3: The rub test
Gently rub a piece of the crumb between your fingers. Does it stay together, or does it immediately fall apart into small crumbs? This is a simple way to measure cohesiveness without a machine.
Step 4: Taste
Putting it in your mouth is the last step because that is where texture, flavor, and taste all hit you at once.
It can be hard to judge a cake in isolation. How do you stay objective at home?
Evaluation without a reference point is very tricky. My best advice is to use your sensory memory. Try to compare today’s cake to the one you baked last week or last month. Ask yourself: Is it sweeter? Do I need to chew it more than the last one? Is it more or less moist? By constantly comparing your current bake to a previous experience, you build a "mental benchmark" that helps you track your progress and improve your recipes over time.
Collaboration with the industry
How do you work together with your customers for sensorial evaluation?
Our sensory panels bridge R&D expertise with our customers’ commercial goals. When manufacturers come to us with a clear brief (like extending shelf life while preserving a premium, moist texture) sensory analysis helps us confirm we’ve met those targets.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, we use data to compare options within each specific recipe and production process, selecting the right freshness enhancer for texture, cost, and shelf-life performance. This gives our partners the scientific confidence to scale up and launch successfully.
At Puratos, we combine sensory insight and functional ingredients to support product success from day one to end of shelf life. Interested in learning more about our cake freshness solutions or enhancing the freshness and profitability of your specific cake recipes? Contact your local Puratos representative today.
