Looking for healthy candy for Valentine’s Day? 3D print them

A scientist has developed a low-fat chocolate formulation that can be 3D printed in almost any shape a person can imagine. (CREDIT: Creative Commons)

A Rutgers scientist has developed a low-fat chocolate formulation that can be 3D printed in almost any shape a person can imagine, including a heart.

The work heralds what the researcher hopes will be a new line of “functional foods” — foods specifically formulated for health benefits. The goal is to develop healthier types of chocolate that are easily accessible to consumers.

In the scientific journal Food Hydrocolloids, a team of scientists led by Rutgers described the successful creation and printing of a low-fat chocolate blend in which fatty cocoa butter was replaced with a low-fat water-in-oil emulsion.

“Everyone loves to eat chocolate, but we also care about our health,” said Qingrong Huang, a professor in the Department of Food Science at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. “To solve this problem, we created chocolate that is not only low in fat, but also 3D printable. This is our first “functional” chocolate.”

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Huang, author of the study, said he is already working on changing the sugar content of a new chocolate recipe for low-sugar and sugar-free varieties.

Researchers create emulsions by breaking two immiscible liquids into tiny droplets. In emulsions, the two liquids usually separate quickly, as is the case with oil and vinegar, unless they are held together by a third stabilizing ingredient known as an emulsifier. (The egg is the emulsifier in the vinaigrette.)

Chocolates are usually made from cocoa butter, cocoa powder, and powdered sugar, combined with any of a variety of different emulsifiers.

Annotation of graphic research. (CREDIT: ScienceDirect)

For the study, the science team experimented with different ingredient ratios for a standard chocolate recipe to find the best balance between liquid and solid for 3D printing. In an effort to reduce the level of fat in the blend, the researchers created a water-in-cocoa butter emulsion bonded with gum arabic, an extract of the acacia tree commonly used in the food industry, to replace cocoa butter. The researchers mixed the emulsion with golden syrup to improve the taste and added this combination to other ingredients.

As delicious as it is, Huang says, chocolate is a material rich in aspects that nutrition scientists can explore.

Using cutting-edge methods to study the molecular structure and physical properties of chocolate, the researchers studied the physical characteristics of printed chocolate. They were looking for the right viscosity level for printing and were looking for the optimal texture and smoothness “for good taste,” Huang said. Experimenting with different ratios of water and oil, they varied the percentage of all the main ingredients before settling on one mixture.

Qingrong Huang is co-author of a new study on low-fat chocolate. (CREDIT: Christa Principato/Rutgers University)

In 3D printing, a printer is used to create a physical object from a digital model by stacking layers of material in rapid succession. The 3D printer and the shapes it creates can be programmed using an app on a mobile phone, Huang said.

Ultimately, Huang said he plans to develop functional products containing health-promoting ingredients — substances he has studied for more than two decades, such as orange peel extracts, tea, red pepper, onion, rosemary, turmeric, blueberries and ginger — which consumers can use. print and eat.

3D printed chocolate. (CREDIT: Creative Commons)

“3D food printing technology allows the development of customized food products with individual taste, shape and texture, as well as optimal nutrition based on consumer needs,” Huang said.

Other researchers involved in the study included Xiqi Yu and Xuanxuan Lu from the Department of Food Science and Engineering at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China.

For more science news, visit our New Innovations section at The bright side of the news.

Note: Materials provided by Rutgers University. Content can be edited for style and length.

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