In the production of a product using a hard butter in a broad sense including cacao butter, for example, chocolate, it has been desired to prevent or to delay fat blooming. For this purpose, various methods have been proposed. Examples thereof include a method comprising adding a certain anti-blooming agent, a method for improving a hard butter itself and a method comprising carrying out a special physical treatment, particularly, heat treatment. As the anti-blooming agent, in addition to chemical substances other than triglycerides such as glyceryl monostearate, sorbitan monostearate and polyoxyethylene sorbitan monostearate, for example, there have been known specific triglyceride compositions other than cacao butter such as a triglyceride composition containing 20 to 60% by weight of a saturated fatty acid having 22 carbon atoms as a constituent fatty acid [Japanese Patent Kokai No. 58-198245 (WPI Acc. No. 84-002817/01)], a triglyceride composition containing 15 to 70% by weight of fatty acids having 20 to 24 carbon atoms and 20 to 60% by weight of unsaturated fatty acids having 16 to 20 carbon atoms as constituent fatty acids (U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,959) and the like.
However, in some countries, the use of chemical substances other than triglycerides is legally limited. Further, in the case that a certain triglyceride composition is used, although anti-blooming effect can be obtained, sometimes, other properties are deteriorated. For example, in the case of the above triglyceride compositions containing long-chain fatty acids as constituent fatty acids [Japanese Patent Kokai No. 58-198245 (WPI Acc. No. 84-002817/01) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,959), there is a problem such as deterioration of the melting property of a hard butter product in the mouth, or the viscosity of a hard butter mix is raised during tempering, which results in deterioration of workability.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds