The influence of formulation and cooling rate on the rheological properties of chocolate

Rheological properties of chocolate play a relevant role either in process design or texture definition. Nevertheless, only flow properties of molten product or mechanical properties of samples cooled at fixed temperature (usually 20 C) are measured, whilst testing conditions close to the industrial applications (temperature close to 30 C) are less common to be used. In this work, chocolate samples (cooled at 1 and 5 C min-1) were characterised at 30 C by using small-amplitude oscillations and low-stress creep tests, aiming at establishing how material properties are related to the chocolate microstructure. The effects of either 3 anhydrous milk fats (AMF), having different melting points, or sugar particle size were evaluated. It was found that addition of AMFs, owing to their solid content, can yield an increase in consistency; however, this effect is less relevant when coarse sugar is used, because of the broader particle size distribution, and it depends on the thermal history because of the different fat crystallisation time. Finally, creep tests resulted to be very sensitive in detecting changes in chocolate rheological properties.