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Stabilizing fats and solids


RomainB

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Hello guys, 

 

I'm looking for a way to stabilize fats and solids togethers, for example in nuts paste.. The idea is to avoid the obvious separation problem. 

I looked a bit anyway on Google and in my books at home and so on, but nothing seems doing the job (mostly because it's just fat, no water added, I tried with maltodextrin in order to absorb excess fat but I lost the creamy texture of the paste,  I maybe used to much)  

 

I've the same problem with things like pesto, oil is always separating the solids parts (nuts, basil leaves..), in this case the only way I found is to dehydrate leaves before making the pesto and to rehydrate with water / oil / lethicin.. But I doesn't feel good with this idea (basil is only good fresh). 

 

An advices for these problems? 

 

Thanks guys! 

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Usually separation in pesto and nut butters doesn't bother me.  If it did, depending on the viscosity, I would use a rotor-stator homogenizer.  Should work fine for pesto but nut butter may have too high viscosity for a rotor-stator homogenizer to handle. 

 

Not that I have one but for homogenizing nut butter I believe a colloid mill is the proper tool toy.  How long do you have to hold your nut butter?  I find nut butter comes out of my Premier grinder nice and smooth.  And compared to a colloid mill cost is a couple orders of magnitude less.

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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OK, I took one for the team...the rotor-stator homogenizer emulsified my couple week old red walnut paste just fine.  I was surprised.  But from the sound of the strain on the motor I'm not sure I would be making a regular practice of it.

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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Thanks for feedback! In fact the separation doesn't bother me usually, in my case for pesto it's because I have a massive usage of it during the service and have to mix it before use it all the time is a bit boring! 

 

For nuts paste the problem is a bit more to have something stable, even when used on something a bit hot (to avoid to have something too fatty in the mouth!). I make a gianduia paste done with very high nuts percent and serve it on a hot bread and I'd like to have something with a better mouthfeel and texture, specially because the fat is melting too much for nuts! 

 

I'll look for the rotor motor, the colloid mill, hydrogenated fats! 

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You need an emulsifier to keep the pesto together if there's an aqueous phase (from your post I'm not sure there is ) There's lists of food grade emulsifiers that sound like chemicals, but are just derivatives of fat. 

 

I believe more food sounding things  like tartaric acid or phospholipids e.g. Lecithin will do it too. 

 

Not sure if xanthan works in a purely oil liquid. 

Edited by gfweb (log)
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A simple trick that works okay for something like natural peanut butter is to rotate the jar, top to bottom, bottom to top, once or twice per day.

 

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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46 minutes ago, gfweb said:

You need an emulsifier to keep the pesto together if there's an aqueous phase (from your post I'm not sure there is ) There's lists of food grade emulsifiers that sound like chemicals, but are just derivatives of fat. 

 

I believe more food sounding things  like tartaric acid or phospholipids e.g. Lecithin will do it too. 

 

Not sure if xanthan works in a purely oil liquid. 

 

 

To the best of my knowledge there is no emulsifier in homogenized milk, and I have never seen homogenized milk separate.

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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3 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

To the best of my knowledge there is no emulsifier in homogenized milk, and I have never seen homogenized milk separate.

 

True. But that's a complex mixture that has its own emulsifiers built in by the cow.  Need to look it up but I think there are phospholipids in milk and certainly some amphipathic milk proteins

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3 hours ago, RomainB said:

For nuts paste the problem is a bit more to have something stable, even when used on something a bit hot (to avoid to have something too fatty in the mouth!). I make a gianduia paste done with very high nuts percent and serve it on a hot bread and I'd like to have something with a better mouthfeel and texture, specially because the fat is melting too much for nuts! 

 

For the nut paste, maybe the solution is not stabilizing the fats, but removing some of the fat.  If your nut butter is prone to separating, let it separate and pour the oil off.  You could also consider lower fat chocolate or even cocoa powder.

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18 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

 

For the nut paste, maybe the solution is not stabilizing the fats, but removing some of the fat.  If your nut butter is prone to separating, let it separate and pour the oil off.  You could also consider lower fat chocolate or even cocoa powder.

 

That's why I tried with maltodextrin in order to absorb excess fat!

Concerning the chocolate I'm looking to use Cacao paste, skim milk powder and sugar in order to avoid classics problem with the cacao butter ambiant temperature. 

 

Xanthan shouldn't works in classic pesto because there no water (hydrocolloid) but I can add a bit just in order to have something "emulsifiable" because there no water in the pesto! 

 

Concerning the milk, fat in homogenized milk is breaking down in globules very smaller and is now binded to milk proteins, that's why there no separation, it seems to be a lethicin like :)

 

Thanks guys!! Trying things and come back if I found a way to do for these research! I'm listening for any ideas with pleasure! 

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Yeah, milk is full of phospholipids. 

 

I think an emulsifier would be the key, although you technically wouldn't be using it for emulsifcation as much for stabilization; you'd be thickening the fat so it doesn't move around as easily. Lecithin might work, but is typically used as an emulsifier and is blended into the aqueous phase of the emulsion before adding the oil, which suggests it needs to hydrate. I don't know if it will thicken oil in the way that's needed here. Glycerol monostearate will thicken oil brilliantly, but needs to be heated to 150°F in order to be activated. 

 

I think the best bet would be to call Modernist Pantry, or TIC gums, or CP Kelco, and talk to one of the gurus. They may have a more elegant solution than what we're suggesting.

Notes from the underbelly

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