Food safety hazards associated with ready-to-bake cookie dough and its ingredients

Cookie dough is recognized as a potential vehicle of Salmonella due to common use of raw eggs as an ingredient. As seen in the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in 2009, which was associated with commercial prepackaged cookie dough, this product also can serve as a novel vehicle for transmission of pathogens. Additionally, many ingredients of cookie dough including flour, eggs, chocolate and peanut butter have also been associated with foodborne illness outbreaks, and therefore the potential of cookie dough carrying microbiological hazards is relatively high. Government agencies and food manufacturers warn against the consumption of cookie dough due to the potential hazards associated with it, but it was reported that young adults in the United States frequently consume cookie dough. In this review, an updated overview of food safety risks associated with each ingredient of cookie dough with main focus on microbiological hazards is provided. Additionally, intrinsic characteristics of cookie dough and their effect on food safety are also addressed in this review. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.