Hardfats as crystallization modifiers of cocoa butter

Abstract

Hardfats, or fully hydrogenated oils, consist of materials with homogeneous composition, composed of high melting point triacylglycerol. Hardfats are regarded as relatively new materials, and remain unexplored in lipid technology, notwithstanding being low-cost industrial products. They can behave as modulators of the crystallization process, acting as preferential nuclei for ordering the crystal lattice and inducing specific polymorphic habits, with great potential for use in crystallization processes. This work evaluated the influence of the addition of different hardfats on the crystallization patterns of cocoa butter (CB). Fully hydrogenated oils with significantly different chemical composition, obtained from palm kernel oil (FHPKO), palm oil (FHPO), cottonseed oil (FHCO), soybean oil (FHSO), and crambe oil (FHCrO), were considered. Blends of CB/hardfats, at concentrations of 1%, 3%, and 5% (by weight) were produced and the crystallization isotherms, thermal behavior, and polymorphism determined. Hardfats FHPO, FHCO, FHSO, and FHCrO proved to be effective additives to modulate the crystallization characteristics of CB, in respect to crystallization kinetics and thermal behavior. Only the hardfat from crambe oil, FHCrO, presented stabilizing effect on the polymorphism of CB, delaying the transition V ! VI.Practical applications: The use of hardfats as crystallization additives in products containing CB, for technological adjustment of CB formulations in order to harmonize events like solidification kinetics, thermal behavior, and polymorphism. Hardfats may act as potential modulators of CB crystallization, with the purpose to obtain higher quality products at significantly reduced cost in industrial processing.

Physical Properties of Candelilla Wax, Monoacylglycerols, and Fully Hydrogenated Oil Oleogels

“…High melting point triacylglycerols (TAG) such as pure TAG and fully hydrogenated oils (usually referred to as hardfats [HF]) have been studied over the years as crystallization modifiers in low melting point fats (de Oliveira, Ribeiro, dos Santos, Cardoso, & Kieckbusch, 2015;Higaki, Koyano, Hachiya, & Sato, 2004;Higaki, Sasakura, Koyano, Hachiya, & Sato, 2003;Ribeiro et al, 2013). Recently, some studies have reported their use as oleogelators, normally together with other oleogelators such as candelilla wax (CLX) (Chopin-Doroteo et al, 2011;Toro-Vazquez et al, 2009) or sorbitan monostearate (de Oliveira, Stahl, et al, 2015).…”

Dispersed free phytosterols as structuring agents in lipid systems with reduced saturated fat

“…Atherogenic index calculated from the ratio between the sums of lauric, miristic and palmitic acids and unsaturated fatty acids present in the blends (Kim et al, 2008;Ulbricht et al, 1991). Considering that SFC at temperatures around 35 °C has a significant effect on properties like flavor release, softness and thermal resistance, the blends 60:40-FP, 80:20-FP, 100:0-FP and all blends containing HSO had more than 4% SFC, in contrast to the blends composed only of CO and PO, in which SFC was even lower than this value (Ribeiro et al, 2013). For application in processed foods, the structured blends composed of PO/OC added with FP or HSO may be indicated for use in margarine and spreads even with 4% SFC, because this shows more than 30% SFC at 10 °C and less tan 5% SFC at 30 °C.…”

“…In its fully hydrogenated form, soybean oil has 87.7% stearic acid, a saturated fatty acid that has no adverse metabolic effects (Gebauer et al, 2014). The addition of low contents of fully hydrogenated soybean oil (HSO) in some lipid matrices showed effective potential as a modifier of their crystallization and physical properties, as was reported in a study with cocoa butter (Ribeiro et al, 2013).…”

“…The operational conditions were: injector temperature 360 °C; detector temperature of 375 °C/min; oven temperature from 250°C to 350 °C at 5 °C/min, 350 °C for 20 min; helium carrier gas; injected volume of 1.0 μL/min and split of 1:100. Triacylglycerols were identified by comparison of retention times, and quantified based on relative peak areas (de Oliveira et al, 2015;Ribeiro et al, 2013). The triacylglycerol compositions of the blends were calculated by weighing the composition PO, CO and HSO with their respective mass fractions in the mixtures in terms of trissaturated (S 3 ), dissaturated (S 2 U), monossaturated (SU 2 ) triunsaturated (U 3 ) triacylglycerols.…”

Crystallization Behavior and Kinetics of Chocolate‐Lauric Fat Blends and Model Systems

“…The crystallization kinetics of cocoa butter has been a subject of intense focus [6,7], yet there is a paucity of research on the effect of lauric fat on cocoa butter crystallization. Ribeiro et al [8] studied the kinetics of isothermal crystallization of cocoa butter-palm kernel oil blends by analyzing the increase in SFC over cooling time. The addition of low levels of lauric fat effectively delayed the onset of cocoa butter crystallization and decreased the Abstract Binary mixtures of cocoa butter and lauric fats have widespread use in chocolates and confections, yet incompatibilities between these fats can present formulation and processing constraints.…”