Development of red palm oil-based gels to modify the fat phase of chocolate spreads

Red Palm Oil (RPO) conversion into gels with semi-solid consistency will improve its application. This work investigated the impact of different RPO-based gels: emulsion gel, oleogel template emulsion, and biphasic gel on the properties of chocolate spread. These RPO-based gels were prepared using soy protein concentrate (SPC) and carrageenan as the stabilizer. The resulting RPO-based gels exhibited good water-holding capacity (WHC ≥ 85), oil-holding capacity (OHC ≥ 98), and high β-carotene retention. The gel type had minimal impact on oil loss (≤1) and color when incorporated into chocolate spreads. However, it significantly influenced β-carotene content, texture, rheological behavior, and sensory properties. Chocolate spread with 100 biphasic gel (BCC100) demonstrated texture properties closest to the chocolate spread control with 100 cocoa butter (CBC100), outperforming chocolate spread with 100 emulsion gel (ECC100) and 100 oleogel template emulsion (OCC100). OCC100 was shown to have poor spreadability, as demonstrated by texture and rheology analysis. However, rheological tests revealed that BCC100, was prone to disintegration under mechanical stress. The gel type also affected the proximate composition of the chocolate spreads. ECC100 and BCC100 had approximately 50 lower fat and calculated total energy than the control. The hedonic test revealed that BCC100 was more favored by the panelists than ECC100 and OCC100. These findings highlight the potential of biphasic gelation of RPO as an effective approach to structure RPO for use as a cocoa butter replacer in chocolate spreads, offering products with improved nutritional profiles and enhanced functional properties. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2025.