Structured emulsions as butter substitutes: effects on physicochemical and sensory attributes of shortbread cookies

Reformulation of foods products to reduce total and saturated fats while maintaining acceptable structure, texture and mouthfeel poses an important challenge to the food industry. In this work, the use of structured emulsions (fibre-induced oil-in-water biphasic systems with reduced total and saturated fats) is proposed to replace butter in shortbread cookies.

Use of structured emulsions resulted in softer dough that was still workable using a traditional process. Shortbread cookies containing structured emulsions were harder and paler than the butter control but had a significantly reduced saturated fat content. They also received promising scores in the sensory analysis in terms of texture and overall acceptability, despite the butter product still being the preferred sample.

The results of this study indicated that structured emulsions represent a good solution to produce nutritionally improved shortbreads. Optimization of the structured emulsion formulation can provide further improvement of the nutritional, sensory and physicochemical properties of shortbread cookies. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.