Abstract: Adopting fresh apple as raw materials and applying microwave puffing with pressure difference puffing theory and method, a new microwave-pressure-difference technology was obtained. This technique could make use of numerous apple resources and adapt to industrial scale proudction to save energy with high efficiency without the requirement of vacuum-deep- fried process. The operation procedures are: increase-pressure, instantaneous decrease-pressure, vacuum dehydration and shape-fixation. A technological operation-curve for relationship among puffing time, temperature and pressure was established. When apple-flake processing adopted this new technology, its puffing-rate is 100%, with water content 3%. The rest indexes were fitted for consumer demands on food nutrition, convenience, nature, low-lipid, low-calorie and high dietary fiber.

Key words: apple-flake, puffing technique, microwave puffing, pressure-difference puffing, microwave-pressure- differencep uffing