Egg yolk granules as low-cholesterol replacer of whole egg yolk in the preparation of gluten-free muffins

•Egg yolk granules have low cholesterol content and they are protein-rich.•A bakery product has been prepared using granules as whole egg yolk replacer.•Batter rheology at 100 °C resulted modified by the granular components addition.•Protein based interactions increased the hardness in the cooked muffin.

In this work, the preparation and evaluation of a low-cholesterol gluten-free bakery product has been investigated. For that purpose, in a muffin recipe, the full egg yolk was replaced by a low-cholesterol granular yolk fraction.In addition to the egg yolk recipe, three other formulations were elaborated: In the first preparation egg yolk was completely substituted by its weight in fresh granules (100% granules recipe). In the second one, the granules were lyophilized (lyophilized recipe) and reconstituted before their use. In another preparation, to further reduce the cholesterol content, all the egg yolk has been substituted by a lower amount of granules (60% granules recipe).Rheological batter characterization at 25 °C has shown that the viscoelastic properties of the recipes elaborated using 100% egg yolk granules and whole egg yolk were similar. Rheological characterization at 100 °C was performed too and differences were observed, with variations in the strength of the interaction in the batter produced by the granular components. Texture profile analysis has shown that all the recipes made using granules were harder than the one made with egg yolk.