Page 26 - Food&Drink Business magazine September 2022

INGREDIENTS
Sweet delight
Caramelisation is an age-old process with a long history of delivering a sweet treat. But caramel is also used as a flavour and a colour, currently ranked the world’s most used food colour by weight.
caramel or toffee flavours and white chocolate. For
more mature palates there are dark chocolate
combinations with salted caramel, desserts with a burnt caramel component, and caramel/nut liqueurs.
THE CARAMEL TRANSFORMATION
In its simplest form, caramel is burnt sugar. Think of heating butter and sugar in a pan to produce a caramel for traditional European caramelised potatoes or homemade muesli.
Simple sugars such as glucose, fructose or sucrose are used to make caramel colours. These sugars are carbohydrates; that is, their molecules contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms linked by covalent bonds. (Covalent bonds share electrons which keeps them attracted to each other.)
When these molecules are heated during caramelisation, the atoms are redistributed and combined, producing larger carbohydrates (polymers), water vapour, and volatile compounds, which are responsible for the pleasant caramel aroma.
Making caramel is a complex process that produces and interacts with hundreds of molecules, with temperature and the type of carbohydrate largely determining which polymer is created.
A final caramel colour product of any type does not correspond to a perfectly defined mixture
of essential substances. It develops in all its complexity due to multiple random
Caramel is used to flavour and colour some of our favourite beverages.
CARAMEL isn’t quite as old as time, but ever since
mankind started cooking over fire,
people have potentially created caramel.
Around the year 250, sweet caramels are
thought to have been produced in India as the
boiled result of sugar cane juice.
In fact, the word caramel is
based on the Latin canna melis, which refers to the sugar cane it is made from.
From India it travelled to Persia (modern day Iran), Greece, Rome and then throughout Europe.
It is believed the first hard caramel was produced by the Egyptians around 1000 AD when they were experimenting to create an energy-rich food that was easy to handle and transport. The result was something like what we would consider a hard-boiled lolly.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is thought to be the first country to have produced a caramelised sweetened milk in the 1500s.
Spanish explorers then transported it to the Americas around the same time as colonisers introduced cane sugar and milk-producing livestock to Latin America. The result was what is commonly known as dulce de leche. Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru all proudly claim to have invented this delicacy.
There are also records from the 1650s of American settlers producing a boiled caramel candy with milk and fat to create a chewier caramel candy.
Fast forward to today, and caramel is still loved around the world and very much part
of our food culture. We use it as food, flavour and as colour. It has been used by beer breweries since the 1800s and is found in foods ranging from soda to sauces and cakes.
In fact, it is the world’s most-used food colour by weight.
According to Innova Market New Products Database, in Australia and New Zealand over the last 12 months, caramel flavour (including salted caramel) is the top- ranking flavour in new product launches in Chocolate Confectionery. For Desserts & Ice-Creams it is ranked second, and fourth in the Dairy and Non-Dairy Yogurt category.
The versatility of caramel means manufacturers can combine caramel with other flavours to create truly decadent eating experiences across multiple product categories.
One of the reasons for its popularity is it can appeal across taste preferences. For sweeter options there are products such as Cadbury Caramilk, salted
In relaunching the iconic choc top, Bulla included a maple caramel flavour in the range.
26 | Food&Drink business | September 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au