Corn oil-based oleogels with different gelation mechanisms as novel cocoa butter alternatives in dark chocolate

Oleogel as fat replacer is an emerging strategy and holds great interests in food industry. Oleogels structured by monoglyceric stearate (MO), beta-sitosterol/lecithin (SO) and ethyl cellulose (EO) with different gelation mechanisms were evaluated to prepare oleogel-based chocolate (OGC) with 50% or 100% replacement of cocoa butter (CB). The physical-chemical properties of OGC were evaluated by rheological, thermal, crystal polymorph and microcosmic analyses. The results indicated that OGC exhibited not only a shear thinning behavior but high degree of unsaturation. For the 50% replacement, the hardness of chocolate containing EO was higher than that of chocolates containing MO and SO, which was mainly attributed to the higher solid fat content for the former. Only MO could replace 100% CB with solid-like appearance. Thermal properties and polymorphic form of OGC were comparable to dark chocolate. The microstructure characterization verified that three kinds of oleogels-CB mixtures exhibited different crystalline structure. These findings demonstrate that highly unsaturated oleogels could be promising candidates for reducing use of CB in chocolate.