Development of a faba bean protein-stabilized coconut oil-based whipped cream

Abstract: Whipped cream is a dessert topping created by whipping a dairy cream. The cream contains 35% milk fat with a mixture of solid and liquid fractions at the refrigeration temperature, as well as dairy proteins and various other components. Whipping the cream leads to partial coalescence of the milk fat globules, which traps air bubbles and creates a fluffy product. By replacing dairy fat with vegetable fats containing both solid and liquid fractions and dairy proteins with appropriate plant-based alternatives, a plant-based whipped cream can be developed. In this research, first, a plant-based cream emulsion was developed by homogenizing a mixture of 40% coconut oil in canola oil with an aqueous phase containing 8% faba bean protein and 0.5% xanthan gum. The emulsion was prepared at 60°C to keep the oil phase molten, followed by cooling to 25° with stirring and storage at 4°C. In some emulsions, 0.5% glycerol monooleate (GMO) was added to the oil phase before emulsification. The cream was whipped using an electric mixer. Unlike dairy whipped cream, which had a peak overrun of 116% in 4 minutes; the plant-based whipped cream with GMO had a peak overrun of 65% at 6 minutes. In contrast, the plant-based whipped cream without GMO took 10 minutes to whip and only reached a peak overrun of 25%. The plant-based whipped cream was equally stable as the dairy whipped cream at room temperature, as there was no aqueous phase separation for one hour. The microstructure of the whipped cream showed that the plant-based product had a diverse range of irregular-shaped air bubbles stabilized with larger aggregates of fat globules compared to the dairy whipped cream. The promising results from this research have set the groundwork for future studies to continue the improvement of this plant-based whipped cream.