Equisweet Milk Chocolates With Intense Sweeteners Using Time‐intensity Method

Five conventional chocolates were produced with different sucrose concentrations (from 40 to 52%) in order to determine ideal sweetness by acceptance test, and it was found that 43% sucrose milk chocolate has the ideal sweetness. Sucrose was replaced by bulking agents and sucralose or stevioside in order to prepare diabetic chocolates and 11 selected and trained judges determined the temporal characteristic of sweetness of these milk chocolates. Sucralose is 700 times sweeter than sucrose in this product, and stevioside, 200 times. Considering these potencies, they presented a time‐intensity profile similar to chocolate with sucrose (i.e., conventional chocolate) and ideal sweetness. There is no significant difference between diabetic and conventional chocolates concerning the following physicochemical analyses: moisture content, medium particle size and Casson yield value. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The time‐intensity method is becoming a useful tool because it makes it possible to compare perception over time of sucrose sweetness with that of other sweeteners. The key point of this study is to consider temporal sweetness characteristics to produce equisweet diabetic milk chocolates. The sensory analysis time‐intensity method probably is a tool to obtain diabetic (i.e., with no sugar) chocolates that present a sweetness temporal profile as near as possible to conventional milk chocolate. This is a first step to produce diabetic chocolate with the same acceptance as conventional chocolate.