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MAILLARD REACTION As just mentioned, the uniqueness of caramel is due in part to the milk proteins. The reaction of these proteins with the reducing sugars in a recipe is called a Maillard reaction. This reaction produces brown nitrogenous polymers or melanoidins, which contribute to the flavor, color and texture. The reaction itself goes through too many steps to cover here so just remember the basics: • It is a reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars. • It is affected by the type and levels of amino acids and reducing sugars. • It is affected by temperature (slow below 100°F, fast above 200°F). • It is affected by time, the thermal profile at each stage of the process. • It is affected by pH, faster at higher pH. • It is affected by moisture level throughout the process. A TWO-PHASE CONFECTION Caramel is often a two-phase confection, continuous and dispersed.To visualize this, imagine wet sand.The sand is the dispersed phase, the water the continuous phase. With the sand, using water gives you a texture for forming your desired shapes. In our caramel, the sand is the crystallized sugars and the water is the syrup.As in the wet sand, the ratio of dispersed and continuous phase will affect the texture, from something you can pour, to something you can shape, to something that is dry and crumbly. The syrup or continuous phase is made up of the water and all ingredients that can remain dissolved in the water.What cannot stay in solution will crystallize or precipitate out to form the dispersed phase. This syrup affects texture and controls shelf life. The water level has the greatest influence in controlling texture, primarily hardness. Caramel — Raw Materials and Formulations The dissolved-sugars ratio controls sticki- The level of water ness, chewiness and toughness. The level and types of sugars of water and types of sugars together will together will control water activity, determining shelf control water life and what kind of protection the prod- activity, uct will need, from moisture pick-up or determining shelf loss, to cold flow. The proteins affect the life and what kind body or elasticity. This continuous phase of protection the can be like a lubricant that allows the dis- product will need. persed particles to flow or even pour as in a syrup, or it can be like a binder or glue to hold them in a given shape to the extent of a hard candy.The key is knowing what you want that continuous phase to do for your particular product, how you want it to behave and its effect on texture, flavor and shelf life. The dispersed phase is not only made up of the sugars that crystallize out, but also oil, fat, precipitates and any inclusions such as nutmeats. What makes up the dispersed particles will affect texture differently.Their overall quantity or ratio of dispersed to continuous will affect how long or short the texture will be (go back to the wet sand and compare the pourable to the crumbly). The particle size affects surface area, affecting the amount of syrup that is needed just to coat the particles, like comparing wet sand to wet clay and similarly the possible range of textures of your confection.Their hardness also has an effect on texture. Is it a hard sugar crystal or a deformable oil globule? Even particulate shape has its effect. The characteristics of your finished product will then be the result of the properties of each phase and how both phases complement each other. Once you figure all this out, you then have to know what characteristics you need at each phase of your process. Is it a small kettle batch cook of a few pounds or a large-scale continuous process of more ➤ 57 th PMCA Production Conference, 2003 23
Caramel — Raw Materials and Formulations The characteristics of your finished product will then be the result of the properties of each phase and how both phases complement each other. than 1,000 lbs an hour? How long will it take to cook or cool to temperature? How much shear is involved? Are you depositing or extruding? How much graining, if any, do you need when forming? Is it to be held and used later as a component to a more elaborate confection? Then, what do you want to happen after packaging so it’s perfect when the consumer eats it? These are some of the questions you have to not only ask, but also to understand the answers. A CARAMEL RECIPE First, let’s describe caramel. Depending on who you ask, you can get a variety of answers.You’ll even get different pronunciations. Answers will range from a flowable ice cream topping to a glassy hard candy. It can be part of a candy bar as a layer to add texture and flavor, something that is sticky to hold peanuts or other inclusions in place, or one of the favorite fillings in a box chocolate, where it can be shaped with good stand-up for enrobing or flowable enough at cooler temperatures for shell-moulded candy. The most recognizable form may be the brown cubeshaped, soft and creamy confection. But even this last description can vary; is it a chewy, long-textured, ungrained piece or is it a tender, short, grained one? Is it fudge? Once you’ve decided exactly what it is that you want to make and how it is to function, you can then begin to determine what your recipe will be and which raw materials to use. There are hundreds of recipes and such a wide range of raw materials available that it can become very confusing as to where to begin, let alone how to modify your recipe to get the exact product you want. There are some basic parameters often given, such as ratio of sucrose to corn syrup, level of milk proteins and so on, but to me that just limits your possibilities and creativity. After all, if you want to make something different, you have to do it differently. It first comes down to knowing exactly what you want to make. You can start by looking at the variety of books and articles (e.g., as in the Manufacturing Confectioner) that are available and start with one that comes closest to what you want in a caramel.You can even start with the label of an existing product. Understanding the Recipe Following the old adage that it is better to teach a person how to fish than to give him a fish, we will show you how to get a better understanding of your recipe and the raw materials and how to use that understanding to modify your recipe to best fit your process and give you that perfect caramel you want to make. So, rather than give parameters that may limit you, we’ll just start with a recipe we’ve found and learn what to do to understand it so you can meaningfully change it as necessary. Caramel Recipe Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170.0 g Sugar, granulated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454.0 g Corn Syrup, 42de/a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369.0 g Sweetened condensed whole milk . . . . 312.0 g Partially hydrogenated vegetable fat . . . . 184.0 g Salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.0 g Soy lecithin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 g Figure 1 This recipe (Figure 1) looks fine and is written just as you need it for batching in production. But it really doesn’t tell us what is in there. So to better understand a recipe, change it into a formula. In other words, break it down so you know exactly what it is you’re working with. Let’s start going through the recipe ingredients and break them down where we can.Then we can discuss their purpose and see how together they make that particular caramel. For this paper, the num- 24 57 th PMCA Production Conference, 2003 ➤
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