Impact of the tempering process on the properties of dark chocolate formulated with cocoa butter equivalents.
Due to the high cost and limited availability of cocoa butter (CB), the confectionery industry is more and more interested in its equivalents (CBE) to be used for manufacturing chocolate. Therefore, the purpose of a recent study, carried out by a team of Peruvian researchers (Castro-Alayo et al., 2023), was to assess the effects of tempering on crystallization kinetics, polymorphism, melting and physical properties of dark chocolates formulated by replacing CB with coconut oil (CNO) and sacha inchi oil (SIO).
Two different tempering regimes (high and low) were used to produce dark chocolates, whose thermal data were obtained by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The results show that in chocolate formulated with these vegetable oils, the polymorphic form b2 is greater than 90%. The presence of both CNO and SIO also accelerated the chocolate crystallization, especially in samples processed with high tempering regime.
In general, all chocolates had the same nucleation pattern that responds to the nuclei generation from a plate-like to a spherical geometry, with sporadic and instantaneous crystal growth. In conclusion, the authors argue that the results reported in the study are useful for the industry to find new possible cocoa butter equivalents, without compromising the quality of the final product. However, further investigations are needed to evaluate other quality properties of chocolate, in particular sensory ones.
Impact of the tempering process on the hardness and melting point of praline chocolate.
Praline chocolate usually contains soft fillings such as water-based filling from fruits. Knowledge of the interactions, in particular migration phenomena, between chocolate filling and fat in praline shell is essential to determine the stability of the product. In this context, the aim of a recent study, carried out by a team of Indonesian researchers (Siregar et al., 2023), was to investigate the impact of shell formation duration (at 10 to 20 minutes intervals) and duration of crystal maturation (tested at day 0 to 12) during the manual tempering process on the characteristics of couverture praline chocolate filled with water-based blueberry filling.
The results show that the melting point and chroma values (L*, a* and b*) are significantly influenced by shell formation and maturation. In this study, the chocolate shell was formulated with sucrose and 34% of fat content. The results showed also that the longer the shell formation, the higher chocolate hardness and particle size. While chocolate lightness (L*) tended to decrease as the maturation time increased. In conclusion, the results obtained are useful for the industry to improve the quality of this type of chocolate.
References: E.M. Castro-Alayo et al., LWT – Food Science and Technology, 173, 2023, 114402; S.Z. Siregar et al., IOP Conference Series: Earth and environmental Science, 1200, 2023, 012017.
