Paper No.: 09
Paper Title: BAKERY AND CONFECTIONERY TECHNOLOGY
Module – 22: Role of Ingredients used in Confectionery Industry
Paper Coordinator: Dr. P. Narender Raju, Scientist, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal Content Writer: Mr. Borad Sanket, Research Scholar, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal
22. Role of Ingredients used in
Confectionery industry
1. Sugar
• Principal ingredient for all the confection – Sucrose
• Non reducing disaccharide, consists of dextrose & fructose
• Solubility of 66% at room temperature and 83% under boiling condition
• Prepared either from cane sugar or beet sugar commercially
• Available in numbers of forms depending on its particle size.
• Granulated, milled/icing, coarse, powdered, ultra fine, caster, non-pareil, fine sugar, etc.
• Sugar syrups - can be used but stability against microbial spoilage and economy in transportation - hinder their uses
Sugar confectionery → Boiled sweets
Toffee/
Fudge
Gums/
Pastilles
Chewing Gum
Liquorice
Type of Sugar ↓
White granulated Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Specially white granulated Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Screened specialities Yes Yes Yes No No
Milled specialities Yes Yes No Yes No
Brown sugar No Yes No No Yes
Liquid sugar Yes Yes Yes No No
Syrups and treacles No Yes No No Yes
2. Invert sugar
• Invert sugar - available as syrup only
• Can be prepared at concentrations as high as 80% at ambient condition
• Sufficiently low water activity capable of restricting microbial proliferation
• Can be mixed easily with sucrose
• Can be concentrated sufficiently to yield products with sufficiently low water activity without crystallization of fructose
• When added to a formulation - lowers the water activity, makes the product hygroscopic
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• High cost of invert sugar - replaced by glucose syrup
• Later being cheaper and having superior properties - widely used
• Although invert syrup improves the flavour of certain products which is not imparted by glucose syrup
• Sugar-containing wastes - treated to produce invert sugar syrup
• Recovery of sugar - reduces cost of waste treatment - economical considerations - guide the manufacturers
• Old-fashioned sugar confectionery products - formulated without invert sugar - involve heating sucrose in the presence of acid - in situ inversion
3. Corn Syrup Solids (CSS)
• Commercial name of glucose syrup - replaced invert sugar
• Principal ingredient in some sugar confectionery products instead of sucrose
• Maltose - the major constituent of CSS, not dextrose
• Originally made by hydrolyzing starch with acid
• Can be made from any source of carbohydrate
• Economical to produce glucose syrup from maize starch, potato starch or wheat starch
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• The most common type - 42 DE (or similar) for sugar confectionery
• Referred to as confectioner’s glucose
• Other grades of glucose syrup - 68 DE or equivalent can be used as a direct replacement
• DE gives a complete specification of the product.
• Given weight of CSS is cheaper than sucrose – widely used
• Limited amount of sugar can be replaced since 42 DE glucose is less sweet than sucrose and affects the water activity and other properties
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• Application of enzymes to glucose syrups - ‘high fructose corn syrup’
• As the DE of corn syrup increases, the properties like browning, flavour, freezing point depression, humectancy, hygroscopy, osmotic pressure, sugar crystallization, sweetness, etc increases
• While some properties like cohesiveness, foam stability, viscosity decreases
4. Cocoa Products
• Solely for the Chocolate confectionery
• Cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and cocoa powder - principal fractions
Chocolate powder – used where fat is not important component - low fat products
• Gives typical flavour which can’t be mimic by any other ingredient
• Neither requires colour nor flavour addition in the recipe
• Flavour depends upon cocoa solid: sugar ratio in formulation
• Offers colour to the product varying from light brown to deep reddish brown colour depending on the pH and rate of addition
5. Dairy ingredients
• Milk - cannot be directly employed - great amount of water to be removed
• Milk solids as either milk powder or sweetened condensed milk
• Skim milk solids (Skim milk powder-SMP) form an essential part in formulations of toffees and fudge
• Butter or butter oil can be added to compensate for the fat
• SMP - keeps better than WMP
• Skim milk and butter can be economically advantageous under certain conditions
Sweetened Condensed Milk (SCM)
• The most preferred source of milk solids in toffee manufacture
• SCM preparation was one of the earliest ways of producing a stable and long life product from milk
• The advantage of skimmed SCM - milk fat can be replaced with vegetable fat whenever required
• Toffees made from SCM - smoother than those made from milk powder - because the less damaged milk protein in SCM
• SCM - provided the tin, has appreciable shelf life without refrigeration
• SCM - sticky syrup needs handling skill
Milk Powder
• The less severe heat treatment during milk powder production – enzymes esp. Lipase – remain active - can create problems
• Lipase - splits fatty acids from glycerol and liberates free fatty acids (FFA) like butyric acid
• If the substrate fat is butterfat then at low degree of hydrolysis, it gives a ‘buttery’ or ‘creamy’ flavour – desirable
• As the FFA content is increased, the ‘cheesy’ flavour becomes pronounced – undesirable
• Free butyric acid - losses during cooking - not a problem practically
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• Other FFAs also contribute to flavour profile
• Lauric acid tastes like soap (sodium laurate - component of soap)
• Butter fat replacer - Palm kernel oil - risk of development of soapy flavour; Nuts – another potential source
• Lipolytic activity shortens the shelf life of the product - affect consumer acceptability
Butter
• Ingredient of toffees and butterscotch
• Rancid butter is preferred - rich in free fatty acids
• Butyric acid - at low levels gives a pleasant, buttery flavour
• At higher levels - gives cheesy flavour
• At still higher levels - notes of Parmesan cheese
• A common approach - add a little quantity of lipolysed butter to the product which gives the same effect as using stale butter or adding a butter flavour
• The lipolysed butter - can be described as 'all natural'
Whey products
• By-product of cheese-making - the good source of lactose and serum proteins
• Whey powder – only whey product can be used as an ingredient in some toffees
• Unpleasant flavour of whey, high mineral content and high lactose content
• Lactose - very limited solubility (12 time less soluble than sucrose) - when used in excess it imparts the unpleasant metallic taste
• Lactose intolerance - can not be neglected
• No major role of whey products in the confectionery
6. Vegetable Fats
• Ultimate choice as a substitute for milk fat in majority of food
• Economical factor: Vegetable oils costs around Rs. 90-150/L as compared to Ghee as high as Rs. 400/L
• Feasibility of vegetable fats - allows blending, hydrogenation and inter-esterification - almost any desired range of properties
• Hardened palm kernel oil - the most common vegetable fat used in toffees - quite cheap but it is a lauric fat - influences the shelf life – imparts soapy rancidity
7. Hydrocolloids: Gums And Gelling Agents
• Class of thickeners and stabilizers
• Make only minor components of confectionery formulations
• Regarded as additives
• Individual agents, their origins and properties are given in Table
Agent Chemistry Properties Source
Gelatine Protein Thermo-reversible gelling Bovine or Porcine hides or bones
Starch Carbohydrates Thermo-irreversible gelling Wheat, Maize, Potato (cereals and tubers) Gum acacia Polysaccharide Gum Trees of Acacia senegal Agar agar Polysaccharide Thermo-reversible gelling Red seaweed
Agent Chemistry Properties Source
Alginates polysaccharide Irreversible gelling Brown seaweed Carrageenan Sulfated
polysaccharide
Thermo-reversible
gelling Red seaweed
Gellan gum Polysaccharide Thermo-reversible or
irreversible gelling Pseudomonal elodea Guar gum Galactomannan Thickening Seed of Cyamopsis
tetragonolobus Pectin Polygalacturonic
acid Irreversible gelling Citrus peel
Locust bean gum Galactomannan Thickening Endosperm of locust bean
Xanthan gum Polysaccharide Thickening Xanthomonas campestris
Egg albumin Protein Whipping,
irreversible gelling Egg white Enzyme modified
soy protein Protein Whipping Soy bean
8. Emulsifiers
• Used in boiled sweets, gums or jellies – except fat free products
• Essential for most chocolate based confections - fat rich
• Assist in dispersing the fat, alter and stabilize the texture of a product
• Facilitates handling of the product during manufacture - impart flowability and ability to be shaped and cut with ease
• Wrong emulsifier or an excess of emulsifier - handling problems
• Milk proteins - good emulsification properties but not included in emulsifiers
• Can be eliminated from the recipe of toffees or caramels by using a larger quantity of milk solids but its rare to find such toffee or caramel
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• Distilled monoglycerides (DMG) or a mixture of mono- and diglycerides, lecithin or sucrose esters - used in toffees
• Lecithin - almost widely employed
• Sucrose esters - the least employed
• Performance of the monoglycerides depends on the purity of the material; DMG are high purity emulsifiers
• Toffee - mostly use the emulsifiers
• Fat-in-sugar type emulsion confection with whipped air in the structure - contains emulsifier as the essential ingredient
9. Colour
• Widely used in foods and beverages to mask variations in the natural colour of the product and to compensate the changes that may occur during processing and storage
• Make products more visually appealing, emphasize flavours associated with applications
• Colour - influence flavour perception and consumer acceptance
• Chocolate confectionery - need not any colouring agent
• Use of colours in foods is strictly regulated and ensured for the safety
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• An alternative approach - use coloured wrap for uncoloured products
• Wrapper colour can efficiently convey the product characteristics
• Colouring substances should be stable under heat, light, reducing sugars and resistance to sulphur dioxide, water soluble
• Lake colour - subclass of colours used for opaque sugar confectionery - panned goods, toffee, chewing gum, fondants, chews, bubble gum, etc.
• Prepared by precipitating the water soluble colour with aluminium, magnesium or calcium salt on to aluminium hydroxide.
10. Flavour
• Complex substances - combination of aroma and taste compounds
• Classified as: natural, nature-identical and synthetic
Natural flavours
• Solely derived from natural sources - extracted by solvent
• The most common natural flavouring agent - Vanillin - Vanilla
• Safety of natural flavours - the main appealing factor for uses
• Economic factor, stability in the food system, feasibility for use and availability throughout year - impedes their usages in the industries
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Nature-identical flavours
• Present in the nature but can be synthesized to replace the natural counterparts
• Vanillin - synthesized and used as vanilla flavour
• Benzaldehyde - used as almond flavour
• Tested for safety more exhaustively and proved inherently safer than natural counterparts
• Quite low cost without affecting quality of product - more appealing than natural flavourings
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Synthetic flavours
• Not present in the nature but can be synthesized
• Used to mimic natural flavour
• Complex group of chemical compounds used where stability in the products under various processing and storage conditions are of prime importance
11. Antioxidants
• To check the oxidation of lipid in the food system - extend the shelf life by imparting stability to the unsaturated fat against various oxidative mechanisms
• BHT (butylated hydrxoanisol) and gallate based antioxidant - widely used in the confectionery recipe
• Natural antioxidants like tocopherol - can be used but the effect is not appreciable as compared to synthetic food grade antioxidants
12. Salt
• Common salt - used in the food industry for several purposes
• Use in the confectionery - only one property - flavour enhancing ability
• Can be used in the confectionery @ 0.5 % to improve the flavour profile of the product
13. Acidulant
• The only intense for the use of Acidulant is to assist the in-situ inversion process during boiling of the content
• Citric acid or tartaric acid - used whenever needed in the recipe
• It also gives pleasant acid notes
14. Sugar Substitute
• Consumer awareness for the risk at high sugar consumption:
sugar-free food products
• The sugar replacement - two components: intense bulking agent and sweetener
Bulking agent
• Includes polyols like sorbitol, lactitol, polydextrose, maltitol, isomalt, erythritol, etc.
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Intense sweeteners
• Among the bulk sweeteners, only maltitol or hydrogenated glucose syrup imparts enough sweetness comparable to conventional sugar confectionery
• Deficit in sweetness - compensated by intense sweeteners
• Not universally legal - use of intense sweeteners has to be regulated strictly
• Cyclamates - banned in certain countries but remained legal elsewhere, and stevioside is legal in Japan but nowhere else
Suggested readings
• Chocolate, Cocoa and Confectionery: Science and
Technology (3rd Ed.) by Bernard W. Minifie
• The Science of Sugar Confectionery by W. P. Edwards
• Modern Technology Of Confectionery Industries With Formulae & Processes by Minni Jha
Glossary
• Invert Sugar - A sweetener that is a mixture of equal weights of dextrose (glucose) and laevulose (fructose). It is more soluble than sucrose and has higher moisture-retaining properties because of the fructose content. It resists crystallization. It is used in candy and icings because it is sweeter, more soluble, and crystallizes less readily than sucrose.
• Treacle – clarified molasses is called treacle.
• Acidulant - Acid used in processed foods for a variety of functions.