Chocolate replacer can reduce cocoa content 50%, says Muntons
Its Maltichoc ingredient recently won Bakery Innovation of the Year at Food Ingredients Europe (FiE) earlier this month.
The company said its blend of roasted malt flours and malt extracts could help manufacturers reduce raw material costs in any bakery application that uses cocoa powder or chocolate.
It also said the ingredient could be added to existing recipes to premiumise product ranges by enhancing flavour and colour.
Cocoa replacer
Andrew Fuller, senior product development technologist at Muntons, told BakeryAndSnacks.com: “Our product is natural, 100% barley malt, containing no flavours or colour.”
“A reduction of up to 50% in cocoa powder is possible, while seeing no loss of product quality,” he said.
”No other product can make these claims, while offering this level of performance and making significant savings compared to cocoa powder,” he added.
The company said the ingredient was clean label and needed only to be declared as “Barley Malt Flour, Barley Extract”.
How much cocoa can you replace?
Asked how much cocoa could be replaced to preserve quality while keeping costs low, Fuller said: “Maltichoc can replace up to 50% of cocoa powder, although we recommend starting at 25% cocoa powder substitution to start with.”
“The level of substitution depends on the type of cocoa powder being replaced. Generally, Maltichoc is added at 80% of the level of cocoa powder removed,” he added.
Costs and challenges
According to Fuller, some of Muntons’ customers have said that Maltichoc is half the price they pay for cocoa powder.
“We estimate that in a premium chocolate brownie recipe, using 10% cocoa powder, overall cocoa expenditure can be reduced by 12% when replacing 20% of cocoa powder with Maltichoc,” he said.
Fuller said the biggest challenge with Maltichoc is to obtain the same variety of colours and flavours as products formulated solely with cocoa powder.
“Cocoa powder varies widely in colour and flavour. The level of Maltichoc therefore has to be adjusted carefully to give the same flavour/colour balance. However, it is flexible enough to replace a variety of cocoa types by simply adjusting the inclusion level of Maltichoc, “ he said.
He added that another challenge was using the ingredient to formulate biscuits.
“In biscuits, the lower fat content of Maltichoc compared to cocoa powder can result in modified flow characteristics. The recipe balance would need tweaking in this case to take account of this,” he said.
The company said that Maltichoc was available worldwide and came in 25kg sacks.
