Dairy-free challenges
Making dairy-free chocolate is not an easy task and producers may face several challenges, according to Palsgaard’s Senior Application Specialist for Confectionery, Lasse Kolding Sørensen.
He explains: “Removing milk fat to create a plant-based alternative is not easy. Removing the fat creates a harder product and you also lose the sensation of eating milk chocolate. Also, you can’t just add any kind of fat because it has to be compatible with cocoa butter.”
This problem can be solved by replacing the milk fat with a milk fat replacer to create the creamy milk-chocolate-like meltdown. This will also preserve the bloom stability, which can occur in milk chocolate.
Sørensen says: “The next challenge is with the non-fat milk solids (milk powder), and this is important because the milk powder contains the lactose and the protein. When you take this out you must replace it with something else. Often the ingredients which are used to replace this can impart a floury or sandy mouthfeel, but we have discovered a rice compound, which is a mixture of rice sugar and rice starch. It provides a very good substitution for milk, and it doesn’t result in those grainy textures.