POROUS MICRONISED FAT POWDER, A PROCESS FOR PREPARING SUCH, AND A PROCESS OF USING SUCH
Porous micronized fat powder, a process for making such powder, a process for mixing such powder with an oil to make a fat slurry and a process for making an emulsion by mixing such fat slurry with an aqueous phase. More in particular, the porous micronized fat powder comprises a structuring fat and lecithin.
1 . A porous micronized fat powder comprising from 70-99.8% by weight of a structuring fat, and from 0.2-10% by weight of lecithin, wherein said powder comprise less than 10% by weight of water.
2 . The porous micronized fat powder of claim 1 , wherein said micronized fat powder comprises 90-99.8% by weight of a structuring fat.
3 . The porous micronized fat powder of claim 2 , wherein said micronized fat powder comprises less than 5% by weight of water.
4 . The porous micronized fat powder of claim 1 , wherein said lecithin is from soy, sunflower, or rapeseed origin.
5 . The porous micronized fat powder of claim 1 , wherein said micronized fat powder comprises from 0.5 to 5% by weight of lecithin.
6 . The porous micronized fat powder of claim 1 , wherein the structuring fat has a solid fat content N10 from 50 to 100, N20 from 26 to 95, and N35 from 5 to 60.
7 . A process for preparing a porous micronized fat powder, wherein said porous micronized fat powder comprises 70-99.8% by weight of a structuring fat and 0.2-10% by weight of lecithin, wherein said porous micronized fat powder comprises less than 10% by weight of water, said process comprising the steps of:
a) providing a mixture of structuring fat with lecithin at a temperature above the melting point of the structuring fat and below 80° C.,
b) pressurising said mixture of structuring fat and lecithin with a gas comprising from 50-100% of CO 2 under a pressure of 100-270 bar, and
c) spraying said pressurised mixture of structuring fat and lecithin through a nozzle in a space having a pressure of 0-10 bar and a temperature of below 30° C.
8 . The process of claim 7 , wherein the temperature of the structuring fat with lecithin in step a) is between 30 and 75° C.
9 . The process of claim 7 , wherein the pressure in step b) is between 150 and 250 bar.
10 . The process of claim 7 , wherein the amount of CO 2 dissolved in the structuring fat with lecithin due to pressurising in step b) is from 25 to 50% by weight.
11 . A process for preparing a fat slurry, said process comprising the steps of:
a) providing the porous micronized fat powder of claim 1 ;
b) providing an edible oil;
c) combining said fat powder and the oil in a mixing vessel and reducing the pressure in the mixing vessel to below 200 mbar;
d) mixing for 2 to 60 minutes 70-97% by weight of the oil and 3-30% by weight of the porous micronized fat powder in the mixing vessel to form the fat slurry.
12 . The process of claim 11 , wherein the mixing in step d) is continued until the viscosity of the content in the mixing vessel has reached a viscosity of at least 5 dPa·s.
13 . The process of claim 11 , wherein the pressure during step c) is reduced to below 150 mbar.
14 . A process for making an edible oil-continuous emulsion comprising 15-80% of a fat phase and 20-85% of an aqueous phase, said weights being in relation to the weight of the total emulsion, wherein the process comprises the steps of:
a) providing the aqueous phase at a temperature below 35° C.
b) providing a fat slurry comprising oil and a porous micronized fat powder; and
c) mixing said aqueous phase and said fat slurry to obtain the oil-continuous emulsion;
wherein said fat slurry is obtained by the process of claim 11 .