Science and Technology of Enrobed and Filled Chocolate, Confectionery and Bakery Products

Geoff Talbot

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781845693909
• eBook ISBN: 9781845696436
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Food Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Enrobed and filled confectionery and bakery products, such as praline-style chocolates, confectionery bars and chocolate-coated biscuits and ice-creams, are popular with consumers. The coating and filling can negatively affect product quality and shelf-life, but with the correct product design and manufacturing technology, the characteristics of the end-product can be much improved. This book provides a comprehensive overview of quality issues affecting enrobed and filled products and strategies to enhance product quality.Part one reviews the formulation of coatings and fillings, with chapters on key topics such as chocolate manufacture, confectionery fats, compound coatings and fat and sugar-based fillings. Product design issues, such as oil, moisture and ethanol migration and chocolate and filling rheology are the focus of Part two. Shelf-life prediction and testing are also discussed. Part three then covers the latest ingredient preparation and manufacturing technology for optimum product quality. Chapters examine tempering, enrobing, chocolate panning, production of chocolate shells and deposition technology.With its experienced team of authors, Science and technology of enrobed and filled chocolate, confectionery and bakery products is an essential purchase for professionals in the chocolate, confectionery and bakery industries.- Provides a comprehensive review of quality issues affecting enrobed and filled products- Reviews the formulation of coatings and fillings, addressing confectionery fats, compound coatings and sugar based fillings- Focuses on product design issues such as oil, moisture and chocolate filling rheology

1

Introduction

Geoff Talbot The Fat Consultant, UK

Abstract

Multi-component confectionery products with a chocolate coating are not new, the first ones having been developed during the early part of the 20th century. Their complexity has, however, increased tremendously during the past hundred years or so. One of the reasons for this has been the continual consumer demand for new taste and textural sensations. This means that, despite the well-established nature of this sector of the food industry and also despite the fact that many of the leading products were developed over 70 years ago, it is still a sector that is growing. This book is divided into three parts. Part I covers the main component parts of these multi-component products – chocolate, compound coatings, fat-based fillings, caramels, fondants, biscuits, bakery products and ice cream. Part II then goes on to discuss some of the product design issues related to enrobed and filled confectionery including fat and moisture migration, fat bloom, as well as the shelf-life, rheology and microstructure of chocolate. Part III deals with the processing and production of these products – tempering, enrobing, moulding, panning and cooling,.

Key words

biscuits

caramels

chocolate

compound coatings

cooling

enrobed confectionery

enrobing

fat bloom

fats

filled confectionery

fillings

fondants

ice cream

market trends

microstructure

moisture migration

moulding

oil migration

panning

rheology

storage

tempering

1.1 Introduction

The basis of all chocolate-enrobed and filled confectionery products is, of course, chocolate. To look at the way in which these products have developed means going back many centuries to central America where first the Mayans and then the Aztecs prized the cocoa bean for the drink that it produced. The Aztecs called this drink ‘chocolatl’ which means ‘warm liquid’. They called the cocoa bean, ‘the food of the gods’, a name which continues to this day in the Latin botanical name for the cocoa tree, Theobroma cacao. According to legends, Montezuma II, the emperor of the Aztecs, consumed 50 cups of chocolatl each day. Not only were cocoa beans used as the basis of this drink, they were also used as a form of currency amongst the Aztecs.

The beans were first brought to Europe by Columbus and were one of the many things he brought back from his journeys to be presented to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. They were, however, largely ignored until the Spanish explorer Cortez arrived in Mexico in 1519. Thinking that he was a long-lost godking, the Aztecs greeted him and his crew with cups of chocolatl. This was the start of the downfall of the Aztec empire and the Spanish overpowered them. It took Cortez, though, to realise the potential of these beans and he introduced the drink to the Spanish aristocracy, after having added sugar to make it more to their taste. Its popularity spread across Europe and by the mid-17th century chocolate drinking houses had sprung up across England.

It was not until 1828, when van Houten in The Netherlands found a way of pressing the fat from cocoa beans and then adding this back to a mixture of powdered bean and sugar that the first solid chocolate bars were produced. Further processing developments included the introduction in 1847 by Fry in Bristol of steam presses to separate out the fat more easily and thereby produce the first bars of plain chocolate. Milk chocolate came along some 30 years or so later having been developed by Daniel Peter in Vevey in Switzerland.

Even in these early days, plain chocolate was used to coat centres such as fondants and nuts and the first ‘chocolate box’ is generally attributed to Cadbury. It is said (National Confectioners’ Association) that in 1868 Richard Cadbury decorated a box with a painting of his young daughter holding a kitten in her arms. Filled chocolates were mainly sold from trays (much like the luxury hand-made products of today). This was reflected in the names of two new Cadbury products launched in 1914 (Plain Tray) and in 1915 (Milk Tray, a chocolate box assortment still produced today). Other British chocolate box assortments that are still available, such as Terry’s All Gold and Rowntree’s (now Nestlé’s) Black Magic, were launched in the 1930s.

Filled countlines (i.e products that were sold as an individual product, often in the form of a bar) were first produced in the United States in the early 20th century but some would say that the 1930s were the golden era of development for such products. Certainly many products still available today were first developed and launched in that decade in the United Kingdom (Opie, 1988):

•	1932	Mars
•	1935	Milky Way
•	1935	Aero
•	1935	Chocolate Crisp (renamed KitKat in 1937)
•	1936	Maltesers
•	1937	Rolo
•	1937	Smarties.

Many of these are now global brands.

1.2 Enrobed and filled products

It is clear from this historical background that it didn’t take long after plain and then milk chocolate in a solid form were developed for manufacturers to start to make chocolate a part of a whole product and to use it to encase other components. This was partly to extend existing product lines by, for example, coating already commercially successful biscuit products with chocolate, partly to protect the centres from deterioration such as, for example, preventing the drying out and hardening of caramel by putting a coating of chocolate around it. The main impetus, though, was the ability to produce totally new products by combining cereal-based biscuits and wafers, fruits and nuts, aqueous-based systems such as caramels, jams and fondants and fat-based pralines in a chocolate wrapper. These developments gave new combinations of tastes and textures to satisfy consumers’ hunger for new sensations.

In recent years cross-over and leveraging of brands from one product sector into another has been a major factor in developing new products. One of the most successful of these cross-over developments was the launch in 1989 of the Mars ice cream bar which was soon followed by many other ice cream products coated in ‘real’ chocolate (until then most ice cream bars had been coated in a chocolate-flavoured compound coating). This has since been followed by the translation of other chocolate confectionery products into cake bars, biscuits, drinks, desserts and so on.

It is useful, perhaps, at this stage to say exactly what is meant by ‘enrobing’ and ‘filling’. Enrobing means to apply a coating of, usually, chocolate (although it could also be a chocolate-flavoured coating or, indeed, a coating of any other flavour) to the outside of a product. Typical examples are coated biscuits, coated ice cream bars, coated cakes, coated fruits and nuts. The coating is usually applied by means of an enrober. This is a machine in which the products to be coated pass through a continuous ‘curtain’ of the coating. As they pass through, they are coated on the top, sides and bottom. Excess coating is removed and the remaining coating is crystallised by passing the coated product through a cooling tunnel.

Some products are dipped into the coating and removed before again allowing the coating to crystallise and harden. Products that are typically dipped are ice creams on a stick (where the coldness of the ice cream begins to harden the coating even before passing into a blast freezer) and some hand-made confectionery products. Other products, particularly small items such as nuts and raisins are coated by panning. In this process the centres are continually moving in a rotating ‘pan’ (similar to a cement mixer) and the coating is sprayed ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright page
• Contributor contact details
• 1: Introduction
• Part I: Formulation
• Part II: Product design
• Part III: Processing, packaging and storage
• Index