Caramel is a widely used water-soluble
food pigment. The acylation of caramel was conducted by aliphatic
acyl chlorides with different chain lengths. Acetyl, butyryl, octyl,
lauryl, palmityl, and stearyl caramels were prepared with the ratio
of acyl chloride/caramel of 6. The formation of acylated caramel was
confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectra, and the acyl mass
fraction in acylcaramel was determined by potentiometric titration.
Thermal analysis showed that the weight loss of acylated caramel was
higher than that of raw caramel. The scanning electron microscopy
analysis showed that the morphology of acylated caramel was significantly
different from that of raw material. The acyl mass fraction of acylated
caramel increased with the increase of acyl chain lengths. Meanwhile,
the lipo–hydro partition coefficient, the solubility in corn
oil, and color, red, and yellow indexes increased with the increase
of the mass fraction of acyl in acylcaramel. It was found that stearyl
caramel has the highest lipid solubility of 5.73 mg/mL in corn oil;
however, the color, red, and yellow indexes of palmityl caramel reached
25 818.60, 1.149, and 1.757, respectively. This study provides
a method to improve the solubility of caramel in lipid phase and expand
the application range of caramel.
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