Effect of emulsion gel as butter substitute on the dimensional stability and nutritional profile of 3D Printed Cookies

This study examined the dimensional stability of 3D printed cookies during post-processing through heat treatment. In conventional cookies, where butter is incorporated as a fat composition, the butter undergoes melting and experiences structural degradation during heat treatment. Therefore, the effect of adding emulsion gel as a fat composition to cookies was investigated. Increasing the emulsion gel content increased the dimensional stability of 3D printed cookies from 50.38% ± 0.62% (EG_0) to 99.88% ± 0.60% (EG_24) during oven processing. Moreover, substituting emulsion gels for butter as the fat composition led to a reduction in cholesterol and saturated fatty acids (ranged from 58.56 g/100 g–3.34 g/100 g for cholesterol and ranged from 16.46 g/100 g–2.67 g/100 g for saturated fatty acid). However, cookies comprised solely of emulsion gel as fat composition did not maintain their shape during the printing process due to their low viscoelasticity (printability of 89.80% ± 0.43%). Through this, this paper confirms that the use of emulsion gels as butter substitutes offers advantages in terms of food processing and nutritional aspects.