Lipases as cake batter improvers compared to a traditional emulsifier

Lipases can act on the baking quality of cakes as clean-label improvers. Only little is known about their possible effects on the batter quality of cakes. Especially the importance of the cake formulation has not been studied before. We therefore aim to analyse the effects of seven baking lipases on three different cake formulations (an eggless basic cake, a pound cake and a yeast-based cake) in comparison to the emulsifier DATEM (mono- and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids). The impact on batter density, stickiness and rheological properties was examined. Both the lipase and the cake formulation had an influence on the extent of batter improvement. The greatest lipase-induced effects occurred in the eggless cake, probably because no intrinsic emulsifiers were present. Lipase reactions seemed to be inhibited in the yeast-based cake. For basic cake and pound cake, three lipases decreased batter density (up to 3.7%) and stickiness (up to 42.7%) and caused a liquefaction of the batter. This leads to an eased machinability of lipase-treated batters for cake manufacturing and opens up many possibilities for application of lipases in cakes and other fine bakery goods.