Industrial application of different heat treatments and cream fat contents for improving the spreadability of butter

Background: Individual factors, which interfere in the continuous churning, were manipulated to enhance the rheological properties and chemical composition of butter. This process leads to achieve softer; more spreadable, and ultimately healthier product for consumers. In addition it could prevent hardening of texture especially in winter. Methods: Firstly, Pasteurized cream with different fat contents (40 & 45% fat) was passed through heat treatments, and then it was injected to a continuous churn. Textural and melting behavior and fatty acid composition of butter were analyzed. Results: Increasing the fat content of cream (from 40 to 45 %) and holding time (from 3h to 5h) in mid-temperature (18 °C) and reducing the churning temperature (from 12 °C to 10 °C), resulted in soft butter texture and improved butter spreadability. Loss Tangent (tan δ) was increased from 0.11 to 0.74 (T=15 °C;f=1Hz). The melting temperature of butter was decreased from 36°C to 32°C and total trans fatty acid content was decreased from 3.2 % to 1.87 %. Conclusion: It was concluded that such heating process (which has been studied and reported in patents) absorbs the low- SFC fats of the cream, integrates them into the butter texture a softer and more spreadable product.