Investigation of the effect of cocoa butter encapsulation on fat blooming in chocolate

Fat blooming is one of the most important quality defects in industrial chocolate manufacturing. In this study, it was aimed to prevent fat blooming by cacao butter encapsulation with whey powder and maltodextrin by spray drying and use of cacao butter incorporated microspheres in chocolate production. The sensory properties of chocolate produced with microspheres were determined and fat blooming was tested. In the optimization of spray drying, different emulsions were obtained by changing the concentrations of whey, cacao butter maltodextrin and lecithin. Emulsions were spray dried at 160°C-190°C by feeding in the range of 16.66 -25 mL / min. For each spray drying run, drying rate was calculated and resulting microspheres were characterized. The surface morphology and agglomeration of microspheres were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy and moisture analysis of the microspheres were made. The drying condition and emulsion composition which were resulted by the highest yield and best microsphere morphology were selected and the microsperes obtained in this condition were used in the chocolate production. Optimal microspheres were obtained by feeding emulsion containing 10% whey and 40% maltodextrin at 25 mL/min feed rate and drying at 190°C. The moisture of microspheres were in the range of 2.12-4.52% and the average particle size was approximately 3.14μm. According to traditional chocolate manufacturing procedure, two different chocolate were produced as one with free cacao butter wheres the other one includes cacao butter microspheres. These chocolates were evaluated in therms of color, sensory quality and texture. In addition, observational and accelerated fat bloom analysis were made in three different chocolate with lecithin, microsphere containing and lecithin free samples. The results showed that chocolate samples with microspheres (N- 1) have similar observational values to cocoa butter added chocolate (N-2). Free lecithin chocolate has lower fat bloom value than the other two samples. The whiteness index of N-2 was found higher than N-1. Although there is no significant differences between N-1 and N-2 in terms of sensory properties, microencapsulation of cocoa butter can be an effective method for preventing fat bloom problem. It was revealed that the chocolate production by using cacao butter incorporated microspheres could be an effective method in the prevention of fat blooming in chocolate.