[en] Irvingia gabonensis seed fat (IGF) is a lauric fat with a high amount of solid fat at room temperature, with a complete melting at around 40°C. In order to investigate IGF as a potential cocoa butter alternative (CBA), its melting behavior was first compared to that of cocoa butter (CB). It was then modified by blending 90% of this fat with 10% of a liquid oil either rapeseed oil (RO) or groundnut oil (GO) or palm super olein (PSO) or Dacryodes edulis pulp oil (DPO). Those binary blends were further enzymatically interesterified in order to improve their melting profiles. The binary blend that showed a melting profile similar to that of CB (and palm kernel stearin (PKS)) was chosen as the best potential new speciality fat. Compatibility between the new speciality fat and CB was evaluated by constructing phase diagrams from p-NMR and powder-XRD data. The interesterified blends made of 90% of IGF and 10% of DPO was chosen as the new speciality fat because its profiles was close to that of CB and showed similar characterics to PKS. Those results indicated that the specialty fat produced from IGF and DPO could be used as CBS in confectionery industries (alone or mixed in low proportion with CB).
