Salmonella infections - also called salmonellosis - mainly lead to unpleasant diarrhoea although symptoms like vomiting and headache frequently occur, too. As children under the age of five are particularly sensitive, salmonellosis may take a more severe course in their case and in the case of older and sick people, sometimes even proving fatal in individual cases. It is, therefore, very important to take precautionary steps by practising good kitchen hygiene when baking cookies.
Besides raw poultry meat, raw eggs are one of the main sources of Salmonella. The bacteria can be found both on the shell and inside, particularly in the egg yolk. When making biscuits Salmonella can migrate from the eggs to the dough and multiply there. They multiply at temperatures between +7°C and +45 °C, the higher the temperature, the faster they multiply. From 70 °C upwards, i.e. during backing, they die off.
Children are particularly at risk of contracting a Salmonella infection when they nibble the uncooked dough. When making cookies, consumers should observe the following rules: » Use fresh eggs » Bake the dough, if possible, immediately after preparing it. » Do not leave the dough to stand for more than 30 minutes at room temperature, particularly as the kitchen is already very warm from the heat from the oven.
» Store larger amounts of dough in the fridge until use and only remove the amount required. » Don’t eat the dough. This applies in particular to children. When working with eggs, the following always applies: » Store eggs at a maximum temperature of 7°C in the fridge to prevent Salmonella present in or on the raw eggs from multiplying. » Eggs with very dirty or punctured shells should not be used at all.