Emulsifiers don’t contribute to the nutrition of baked foods in necessarily the same way as bulking up the fiber or protein content, but they can help reduce the saturated fat simply by moving away from conventional emulsifiers to more clean label ones.

“Traditional chemical emulsifiers like DATEM and mono- and diglycerides are essentially made up of saturated fats,” said Paul Bright, innovation manager, AB Mauri North America. “By removing these chemical ingredients and replacing with clean label, enzyme-alternative solutions, bakers can remove negative-sounding chemical ingredient names as well as reduce the amount of saturated fats in their baked products.”

Bakers also can reduce saturated fats by replacing shortenings with less objectionable ingredients.

“Sweet baked goods like snack cakes and cakes are often made using shortenings that are not that healthy,” said Tim Cottrell, director of business development, emulsifiers and texturants, Kerry. “These products have an inherently higher level of saturated fat compared to the conventional products that they have replaced. There are a limited number of ways of getting higher melt point oils required for plastic shortenings.”

Kerry developed its Myvalite emulsifier technology to enable bakers to replace shortenings with liquid vegetable oils and still get the same product quality and improve the Nutrition Facts Label. It can also help bakers achieve the same batter quality without partially hydrogenated oils.

“The creaming step used in traditional cake making requires a shortening with a certain amount of fat solids that in the non-p.h.o. era needs to come from a higher level of saturated fat,” Mr. Cottrell said.

Myverol 18-35K, a simple semisoft monoglyceride, can deliver the creaming necessary for a good finished cake quality.

“However, if we would like to replace the shortening with a healthy liquid canola oil, we will need a more advanced emulsifier system,” he continued.

Kerry’s powdered Myvalite 1967 NT can be added to the batter with simple liquid oils such as canola or sunflower without special processing that PGME requires. While the saturated fat reduction will vary by application, Mr. Cottrell said, the ingredient can allow a 90% reduction or higher of saturated fats as bakers replace shortenings with healthier oils.

This article is an excerpt from the March 2019 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on emulsifiers, click here.