Food Nanotechnology by David Julian McClements

Author:David Julian McClements
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2022-08-02T16:23:47.409000+00:00

4.5.3

Chocolate

The consistent production of high-quality chocolate depends on understanding and controlling the properties of the nanocrystalline fat that contributes to the desirable appearance, texture, and mouthfeel (Delbaere et al. 2016). The fat is organized into a network of nanocrystals assembled into complex hierarchical structures that contribute to the solid properties of chocolate, such as the characteristic “snap” of good quality products (Figure 4.9). Overall, milk chocolate is comprised of powdered milk, cocoa, and sugar dispersed within this fat crystal network. Heating causes the fat crystals to melt and disintegrate, thereby causing the chocolate to become more fluid-like. This is an important factor contributing to the desirable mouthfeel of chocolate products. The chocolate manufacturing process must be carefully regulated to create a fat crystal network that provides the desired textural attributes and mouthfeel qualities. Specifically, the dimensions, shape, polymorphic form, and interactions of the fat crystals formed within the chocolate must be controlled, which is achieved by manipulating product composition and processing conditions, such as holding temperatures, cooling rates, and shearing speeds. Researchers have studied the organization of the different structural elements in chocolate from the nanoscale to macroscale using a variety of analytical tools, including atomic force, electron, and optical microscopies. These studies have shown that small individual fat crystals (“crystallites”) are assembled into star-like clusters (“primary particles”), which are themselves assembled into larger fractal clusters (“blobs”), that aggregate with each other to provide the overall fat crystal network (Tang and Marangoni 2006b, Tang and Marangoni 2006a). Mathematical models have been developed to predict the influence of fat crystal concentration, size, and interactions on the mechanical properties of the nanostructured fat crystal networks (Marangoni and Tang 2008).

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