Interesterification of rapeseed oil with anhydrous milk fat and its stearin fraction

Introduction Chemical and/or physical modification of oils and fats are commonly used by food industry to widen their range of applications (1,2). Lipase-catalysed interesterification of anhydrous milk fat (AMF) and various vegetable oils is now a well documented procedure (3-7). The purpose of this technique is to produce original structured fats with properties different from a simple blending, that may be used as spreads or introduced into pastry. The new fats contain higher amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) than butter, which provides health benefits (8,9). To our knowledge only a few authors associated AMF fractionation with blending and interesterification (10,11), although this combination may be used to increase the ratio of vegetable oil in blends and thus the PUFA content of the product. The compositional changes occurring during the lipase-catalysed interesterification of AMF/rapeseed oil (RO) and AMF stearin fraction (AMFSF)/RO blends were described in the first part of this study. In the present and second part are reported the resulting changes in physical properties, especially the melting behaviour through solid fat content (SFC), dropping point (DP) and fusion profiles by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).