TEMPERING A simpler process
Dr Marangoni and the team at the University of Guelph wanted to make the process simpler, by finding an ingredient that could more easily help form the correct crystal structure. Along with research associate Dr. Saeed Ghazani, chemistry student Jay Chen and master of science student Jarvis Stobbs, he tested several minor components that are naturally present in cocoa butter and selected a specific molecule, a saturated phospholipid, to ‘seed’ the formation of proper cocoa butter crystals. The team found that adding the phospholipid to melted chocolate and then rapidly cooling it once to 20°C accelerated crystallisation without the need for tempering. The resulting chocolate had an optimal microstructure, with a good surface gloss and strength. The final chocolate structure and properties were found to be comparable to those of a commercial tempered chocolate and so the team concluded that minor lipidic component addition can provide an effective way to engineer chocolate material properties at different length scales – effectively simplifying the entire tempering process. The team was able to confirm its findings by visiting the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan. The synchrotron technology and bright light – millions of times brighter than the sun – available at the facility allowed the team to create micrograph images of the interior microstructure of the chocolate in full detail which confirmed the positive effect that
their seed ingredient had on the chocolate structure. “It’s exciting that you could just add a phospholipid – a natural component already presents in the cocoa butter – to achieve the required tempering,” says Dr Marangoni. “By potentially eliminating the need for complex tempering machines our findings could revolutionise the industry and allow smaller manufacturers to produce chocolate without a big capital investment on machinery.” Since the publication of the initial findings of the research last
year Kennedy’s Confection caught up with Dr Marangoni to find out how the research has progressed since publication of the findings last year. Dr Marangoni told us that they are continuing to make progress in this area. He says: “Since publication of the research, we have now undertaken experiments which confirm that the phospholipids self-assemble into first reverse micelles and then into large mesoscale lamellar structures using both X-ray and neutron scattering. To make this really useful, we are also making an inexpensive phospholipid mixture from sunflower lecithin by interesterification, which will act as a specific seed for specific triglycerides in the cocoa butter. We have also demonstrated that the phospholipids specifically interact with cocoa butter triacylglycerols.”
References 1. Chen, J., Ghazani, S.M., Stobbs, J.A. et al. Tempering of cocoa butter and chocolate using minor lipidic components. Nat Commun 12, 5018 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25206-1
Dr Alejandro Marangoni and research associate Dr. Saeed Ghazani, looking at images of the interior microstructure of the chocolate.
KennedysConfection.com Kennedy’s Confection November 2022 27
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