Grape, raisin and sugarcane molasses as potential partial sucrose substitutes in chocolate ice cream: A feasibility study

The potential for sugarcane, grape or raisin molasses as a partial sucrose substitute in chocolate ice cream was studied. Sucrose substitution by molasses reinforced the macroviscosity and increased consistency coefficient. The air incorporating capacity was enhanced resulting in narrower air cell size distributions. The textural and thermophysical profile, as well as the melting behaviour of the sugarcane molasses ice creams, was similar to that of the sucrose based analogues. Sucrose replacement by raisin or grape molasses was accompanied by a significant improvement of melting resistance, but induced a significant increase in the instrumentally and sensory assessed hardness. According to quantitative descriptive analysis findings, sugarcane ice creams exhibited the highest coarseness, wateriness, iciness, astringency and sourness sensation stimuli, the grape-based ice creams exerted the best chocolate colour and mouth-coating ability whilst the raisin molasses analogues were perceived as highly creamy, sweet, gummy and well balanced in terms of chocolate flavour.