Cookies without added sugars: is erythritol suitable for shortbread?

Today we wanted to share with all of you an article compiled by Elena Spolaore, of Food Hub in Science Pills.

Erythritol has been getting a lot of talk in recent days, but the reason for this article is different.

We thought it was so interesting that we had to re-share it with you as well.
From this page you can read just the excerpt and at the bottom you will find the direct link to the site of the original author whom we thank in advance.

Cookies without added sugars: is erythritol suitable for shortbread?

Erythritol is a widely occurring natural substance and is classified as a polyol.

It occurs as a metabolite or storage compound in algae and fungi and is also contained in some common fruits such as melon, grape and pear.

The largest erythritol-producing countries are China, the United States and South America. In Europe, there is only one company with headquarters in Switzerland and a production plant in France (WhereSaporePuro erythritol comes from).

At the digestive level, due to its low molecular weight, it is 90% absorbed into the bloodstream and excreted as such through urine. Only the remaining 10% reaches the intestinal lumen and may result in water recall and/or fermentation by the microbiota.

The range of applications of this natural sweetener is growing.

It can currently be found alone or in combination with other polyols in foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

The Italian food industry a few years ago started using erythritol mainly in fruit preserves and spreads.

In the baked goods segment, in the "no added sugar" category, we find organic cookies with erythritol and conventional cookies containing maltitol.

The reason is simple, maltitol is more suitable for shortbread making but in organic version it does not exist.

Cookies made with erythritol are very different from those with sucrose in taste and texture.

Due to the lack of reducing sugars, the typical browning from baking is less pronounced. However, this can be an advantage: the use of polyols such as erythritol in cookie production reduces the formation of acrylamide.

Although replacing a certain percentage of sucrose with erythritol may result in a dough that is suitable from a manufacturing process standpoint, erythritol is not suitable from a sensory standpoint.

In fact, the cookies come out too hard and the perception in the mouth is of a product that is too dry, not moist enough.

Read more about this topic in the article published on Food-Hub.com. Click here.

Thanks again to the author of this article Elena Spolaore for the valuable information and to the source blog on which this article about erythritol, the sugar that has been making waves recently.