combining fat and waxes in hybrid systems for bakery application

Natural waxes have been investigated extensively the latest decade as potential replacers for saturated triglycerides for liquid oil structuring. However, wax-based oleogels are quite shear-sensitive which hampers their functionality in bakery applications and at higher concentrations the risk of a waxy aftertaste is apparent. For this reason, combining hardstock fat with waxes in a hybrid system may lead to partial replacement of saturated fat while maintaining the functionality and texture of the lipid product. In this research, three types of waxes (candellila, carnauba and berry wax) were combined at several concentrations around their respective critical gelling concentration with a palm stearin/rapeseed oil (30/70) mixture into a hybrid system. Hybrid systems were produced under static as dynamic conditions and the physico-chemical properties of these lipid systems was investigated with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), rheology, polarized light microscopy (PLM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) to investigate the interaction between the hardstock and the waxes. It was found that addition of waxes induces a faster crystallization of the palm stearin and from the PLM it was observed that the different types of waxes have another impact on the crystal structure of the hybrid system. This leads to a remarkable increase in hardness of the hybrid systems compared to the reference fat system but depending on wax type and applied concentration.