DOCE CIÊNCIA

Para quem realmente gosta de estudar a ciência por traz da manteiga de cacau: Polymorphism of cocoa butter In the confectionery industry, crystallization of cocoa butter (alone or in chocolate) is carried out in two steps: (1) pre - crystallization, or tempering; (2) crystallization by cooling (moulding etc.) and in storage. Since cocoa butter has six crystal modifi cations, the purpose of pre - crystallization is to produce the necessary amount of crystal seeds of the least unstable modifi cation, β (V) (see below). Here, ‘ least unstable ’ means that this modifi cation remains unchanged over several months. To produce the stable modifi cation β (VI) directly needs sophisticated technology, and such technology is not yet in everyday use, but investigations aimed at solving this problem are in progress. If the correct technology is used, the proportion of the β (V) modifi cation generated by tempering is about 1 – 5%, and the proportion generated by coolin...