Physicochemical properties of oils from different avocado varieties: Indonesian cultivars vs. imported Fuerte variety

A study was carried out to compare the characteristics of oils from three Indonesian avocado cultivars with those of the oil from Australian Fuerte avocado variety. Oil samples extracted from matured avocado fruits were assessed for basic physicochemical characteristics, fatty acid and triacylglycerol compositions, and melting and solidification behavior. In comparison to Fuerte variety, the local avocado cultivars found to be mostly in semisolid form. As a common feature, oils of local cultivars (Indo-1 and lndo-3) and Fuerte variety were found to have oleic acid as the most dominant fatty acid except lndo02 which contained palmitic acid as a dominant fatty acid. However. There are differences between them with regard to the proportional distributions of palmitic and linoleic acids. While the major TAGs of Indo-1 and lndo-2 were POO, POL and PPO, the dominant TAGs of lndo-2 were POL, PLL and PPO. On the other hand, the major TAGs of Fuerte variety were POO, OOO, OOL and POL. Due to these differences in fatty acid and TAG distributional patterns, the oils of local avocado cultivars were found to possess iodine value, slip melting point, melting and solidification behavior, which were completely different from those of the imported Fuerte avocado variety

Correlation between microstructure and hardness of formulated palmitic and lauric-based shortenings

Formulated Palmitic (PBS) and Lauric-based (LBS) shortenings were studied for their microstructure and hardness. PBS were prepared from ternary blends of palm oil, palm stearin and soybean oil. Meanwhile, LBS were prepared from ternary blends of high oleic sunflower oil, coconut oil and palm stearin. It was shown from isosolid diagram that those formulated shortenings had monotectic behaviour when they were measured within interval of desired solid fat content (SFC) of commercial shortenings. Higher SFC had positive correlation with the amount of high melting triacylglycerols (TAG) present in the fat blends. The SFC values at certain temperature were also significantly contributed on the hardness of the fat blends. The hardness of PBS and LBS was examined using Universal Texture Analyser. It was shown that the hardness of PBS having approx. 20% SFC at 15 °C were at around 10-15 N while LBS with similar condition had hardness at around 8-13 N. It was also acknowledged that formulated PBS and LBS had different microstructure as seen under polarized light microscope/PLM and played an important role on the texture. For instance, PBS showed fine needle crystals while LBS generally had asymmetric spherulite crystals and subsequently forming bigger clusters

Enzymatic interesterification of lauric fat blends formulated by grouping triacylglycerol melting points

Lauric fat blends (appreciable amount of lauric fat with liquid oil and hard fat) initially formulated for shortening production by grouping triacylglycerol (TAG) melting points were further modified by enzymatic interesterification (EIE) to improve their key functionalities as plastic fats. At a similar fat blend formulation, only the high melting fat and medium melting fat were interesterified in binary-EIE. Meanwhile, both fats and the liquid oil were interesterified in ternary-EIE. The solid fat content (SFC) of all binary-EIE blends was generally retained as similar in the temperature range between 0 and 20 °C when the amount of unsaturated TAGs was limited by excluding the liquid oil during EIE. However, the SFC was significantly reduced at temperatures above 20 °C compared to that of the initial blends. Furthermore, the melting point of binary-EIE blends at BH50H15 formulation prepared with palm stearin and fully hydrogenated rapeseed oil as the hard fat was found to be drastically reduced from 54.6 to 35.3 °C and from 62.8 to 39.2 °C, respectively. In contrast, the SFC of ternary-EIE blends was generally reduced when more unsaturated TAGs were available for EIE by including the liquid oil. However, higher SFC was noticed at temperatures around 10 °C in ternary-EIE blends, as the amount of high-melting fractions in their initial blends was increased from BH50H5 to BH50H15. Eventually, both binary and ternary-EIE were also found to significantly alter the crystal microstructure of lauric fat blends, in terms of crystal morphology, size and network density

A comparison of palm-based and lard shortenings on cookie dough properties and cookies quality

A study was carried out to compare the cookie dough and cookie quality made from formulated palm-based shortenings (FPS) with lard shortening (LS). Two TM/ternary mixtures [palm oil (PO)/palm stearin (PS)/soybean oil (SBO)] (TM-1, 38:5:57 and TM-2, 40:5:55) and two QM/quaternary mixtures [palm oil (PO)/palm stearin (PS)/ soybean oil (SBO)/cocoa butter (CB)] (QM-1, 38:5:52:5 and QM-2, 32:5:54:9) were prepared in different ratios. The cookie dough made from FPS and LS were compared in terms of their consistency, elasticity, hardness and adhesiveness. Meanwhile, the cookie made from formulated FPS and LS were compared in term of their width, thickness, spread ratio, colour (L*,a*,b*), hardness and fracturability. LS had a higher dough consistency (333 BU) compared to FPS which is in the range of 280-291 BU. In the meantime, LS also had a higher dough elasticity (63 BU) compared to FPS (47-52 BU). The cookie dough made from QM-1 had the highest value of hardness (20.65 N). Interestingly, TM-1 (15.99 N) was found to display a dough hardness value somewhat close to that of LS (15.10 N). From this study, none of FPS was found to have adhesiveness value closely similar to that of LS. The width, thickness, spread factor and colour (L* value) of cookie made from FPS were found to be compatible to that of LS. Cookie containing TM-1 (41.09 N) was found to have hardness value closely similar to that of cookie made from LS (40.75 N). On the other hand, cookie made from LS (10.06 N) had the highest fracturability value compared to cookie made from FPS (ranging from 7.48 to 8.90 N)