Use of Modified Starch as Fat Replacer in Reduced Fat Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Abstract

Coconut milk has been added as an ingredient in various Thai food and dessert since ancient times. Coconut ice cream is one of the most popular dessert in Thailand. But nowadays consumers are health conscious and avoid high fat products. So reduced fat coconut ice cream would meet their needs. In this study, the amount of coconut milk fat was reduced to different levels (1-8%) and a carbohydrate-based fat replacer (α-Starch or MT-01) was then added to replace the fat. Samples were kept at –28^oC and tested for viscosity, overrun, deforming force, melting rate, pH and sensory evaluation. The results showed that reducing fat level and increasing fat replacer tended to increase the viscosity, overrun and deforming force of ice cream but had no significant effect on the melting rate and pH. When emulsifiers were then added to improve the samples’ quality, sensory evaluations revealed that the ice cream with 1% fat and 0.1% mono- and diglycerides was the most acceptable and had the lowest cost.