Development of chocolate technology for dietary purposes based on natural sweeteners

Chocolate it’s popular confectionery product for children and adults. However, excessive consumption of chocolate adversely affects to human health due to high content of simple carbohydrates, especially sucrose. At Department of Technologies grain processing, bakery, confectionery and pasta production in Moscow State University of Technology and Management. K.G. Razumovsky developed a recipe for chocolate with natural sweeteners, such as stevioside and erythritol. Stevioside is a glycoside extracted from a stevia plant. Thanks to thermal stability (destruction occurs at 190–200 °C) it can be used in the traditional technology of chocolate production. Erythritol (erythritol) is a polyhydric sugar alcohol, produced from corn. Main difficulty of chocolate production with natural sweeteners on traditional way is - replacing sucrose with stevioside and erythritol in finished chocolate, a specific bitterness appeared, elimination of which became the main task of research. The obtained sample is characterized by maximum approximation to traditional taste, it does not have a side effect of using sweeteners - bitterness and a specific aftertaste. According to organoleptic and physicochemical parameters, it is close to classical dark chocolate, and also exceeds by more than two times average value of antioxidant capacity by lipophilic fraction, compare with well-known chocolate producers in Russia. This may be a consequence of increased content cocoa products in prototype recipe of chocolate sample, in comparison with traditional brands, with exclusion of sugar from recipe and replacement with natural sugar substitutes.