Application of organogels containing grape seed oil and carnoba in muffin production

Solid fats play an essential role in improving the hardness, viscosity, spreadability, plasticity, and taste of food products and, so they are one of the most important and critical compounds in the food industry. However, most solid fats contain saturated and trans fatty acids that can have adverse effects on human health. Oleogels are structured fats in which oils are trapped in three-dimensional structures. The production of such structures can reduce the content of solid fats in food products. Therefore, oleogels have been studied as novel structures for the partial replacement of solid fats and shortening. Hence, the aim of this study was to produce low fat muffins using oleogels using carnoba wax and grape seed oil as an oil substitute in muffin formulations.

The oil in the muffins formulation was replaced with various levels (0 and 100%) and compared with the control sample in terms of viscosity, moisture content, specific volume, color properties (L *, a and b), microbial properties and sensory properties were compared..

The rheological properties of different dough samples showed that all samples had shear-thinning behavior and the rheological behavior was well described by the power law model. With increasing the percentage of oleogel application, the apparent viscosity of all samples and their consistency index decreased. Moisture content of muffin cake samples containing oleogel were higher than the control sample. With increasing the percentage of using oleogels to the level of 50%, the specific volume of cakes increased. However, further increase of oleogels from 50 to 100% significantly (p<0.05) led to a decrease in specific volume. Changes in color indices (L*, a, and b) showed that using oleogel up to 50% level had no significant effect (p>0.05) on L* index but significantly (p<0.05) increased the a and b indices. Increasing the storage time significantly (p<0.05) decreased the L* index and increased the a and b indices. Also, increasing the storage time led to an increase in the mold and yeast count in the muffin samples and by increasing the level of oleogel application, the number of molds and yeasts increased. Evaluation of sensory properties of muffin samples showed that samples containing oleogel from 10 to 50% in terms of sensory properties were not significantly different from the control sample (p<0.05) but by increasing the percentage of oleogel application from 50% and above, it led to a significant decrease in all sensory properties of muffin samples compared to the control sample and other treatments.

Therefore, in general, a sample containing 50% oleogel based on carnoba wax and grape seed oil instead of oil can be selected as the superior sample.