Pulse and Oilseed Protein-based Oil Structuring for Baking Application

This chapter critically reviews and reports recent work on plant protein-based indirect oleogelation. So far, emulsion, foam, and hydrogel-based templates have been used for oil structuring by removal of the water via drying or solvent exchange followed by the addition of liquid oil. Typically, emulsion-templated oleogels have shown higher gel strength and better thixotropic recovery than foam-templated oleogels. Usually, the texture analyzer-measured hardness of protein-stabilized oleogel-based cakes was found to be higher than conventional shortening-based cakes. Only a handful of studies used sensory analysis, where a lot of variability was observed. When oleogels were prepared from faba protein and canola protein isolate-stabilized emulsions, heat-treatment to induce protein denaturation was found to improve the oleogel oil binding capacity and rheology. Between the two plant proteins, oleogels from canola protein were superior in quality than those from faba protein. The stability of the oleogels, however, did not affect the hardness of the cakes, and both the oleogel cakes were softer than the shortening-based cakes. The utilization of plant proteins for oil structuring is novel and promising, and it can provide beneficial effects of utilizing proteins and lowering saturated fat. However, more research is needed to understand the complex interaction of an oleogel with a food matrix during processing.