Use of Chlorella vulgaris lipidic extracts in the development of healthier pastry products with reduced fat contents

Pastry products constitute a significant segment of the food market. However, the high amount of fat used in their production poses a challenge when competing for the attention of modern consumers, who are more conscious of the health problems associated with the consumption of high-fat products. With this in mind, the main objective of this study is the reduction of the total fat and saturated fat contents of two bakery products, brioche-type bread and rice cake, by partial substitution of the main fat source with Chlorella vulgaris lipid extracts obtained through non-thermal high-pressure extraction (HPE). A reduction of 3% in the fat content of the brioche and a reduction of 11.4% in the total fat content of the rice cake were observed when the microalgae extracts were used to replace 10% of the margarine used in the brioche and 20% of the sunflower oil used in the rice cake. This substitution resulted in fat-reduced bakery products with similar physicochemical and nutritional properties to the full-fat controls. A triangle test demonstrated that no differences were perceived for the fat-reduced brioche, while in the rice cake, only slightly perceptible differences were detected. Moreover, brioche and rice cake containing the extract presented values of 1.22 ± 0.27 and 1.29 ± 0.39 mg GAE/g of total phenolic compounds, respectively. DPPH and FRAP activities were also quantified in 0.95 ± 0.38 and 1.83 ± 0.27 µmol AAE/g for brioche with extract and 1.10 ± 0.61 and 1.39 ± 0.39 µmol AAE/g for the rice cake with extract, respectively. The products were microbially stable for at least four days at room temperature. This study demonstrates the potential of using HPE microalgal lipid extracts as fat substitutes in bakery products.