Effects and mechanism of sucrose on retrogradation, freeze–thaw stability, and texture of corn starch–tamarind seed polysaccharide complexes

In this work, we investigated the effects of sucrose (0%-30%, w/w) on the pasting properties, retrogradation, freeze-thaw stability, texture, and the possible interaction with corn starch-tamarind seed polysaccharide (CS-TSP) mixtures. Sucrose increased the gelatinization temperature (from 76.4 ± 0.1 to 87.6 ± 0.0°C), peak viscosity (from 3358.0 ± 1.4 to 7732.5 ± 44.5 cP), and final viscosity (from 3514.0 ± 31.1 to 7724.5 ± 142.1 cP) of CS-TSP mixtures. Further, sucrose limited the increase in the storage modulus of the mixture pastes, transfer of bound water to free water, and water syneresis during the freeze-thaw process. Additionally, sucrose resulted in a more complete gel structure with stronger resistance. Scanning electron microscope and fluorescence labeling analysis showed that the presence of sucrose helped in tight entanglement or cross-link between amylose or between amylose and TSP. Thus, these results in this study could help to improve physicochemical properties of starch-based products, such as glue pudding and other starch desserts.