Abstract
This study determines the possibility of using spread (SC) and compound chocolate (CC) as delivering agents of betalains, bioactive compounds and coloring agents. Therefore, the effects of various beetroot powder concentrations (0.0-1.00 g/100 g) on SC and CC’s quality parameters and the associated visual properties over a 12-week period under accelerated shelf-life conditions were investigated. The hardness and plastic viscosity values of CC significantly increased as the amount of beetroot powder increased (P<0.05), the particle size while melting behavior, water activity, moisture content and sensory properties did not significantly change (P<0.05). The D90 and textural properties (firmness, stickiness, adhesion, work of shear) of the SC samples were significantly affected with the addition of beetroot powder (P<0.05), but no significant differences were observed in moisture content, water activity and some sensory properties (P>0.05). The use of beetroot powder for both groups caused a significant decrease in the samples’ color values, and the redness associated with the pigment source also significantly increased (p<0.05). The findings revealed that high concentrations of beetroot powder did not significantly impact CC’s color stability to the same extent that it impacted the SC’s color stability. This study was made as a preliminary study to produce functional foods.
Highlights
Due to increased awareness of relationships between health and nutrition, functional products have gained importance in recent years (Morato et al, 2015)
The moisture content is of critical significance for chocolate products as a relationship exists between the amount of moisture and shelf-life of the products and its other main quality parameters such as hardness, viscosity and melting
The moisture values of compound chocolate samples were in the range of 0.77-1.44 g/100 g, which corresponds to the values below the critical level (Table 1)
Summary
Due to increased awareness of relationships between health and nutrition, functional products have gained importance in recent years (Morato et al, 2015). Global chocolate providers currently supply a range of flavored and colored chocolate and chocolate products (e.g., compound chocolate, chocolate-coated wafers, chocolate chips, etc.). As milk and dark chocolate varieties are not suitable for coloring due to the cocoa powder they contain, white chocolate is suitable to be used for coloring products. White chocolate is used as a carrier for bioactive compounds that have coloring effect. Even though these products are becoming more popular day by day, a limited amount of research has been performed in this area (Lončarević et al, 2018).
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