How to Create Gelatinous Textures in Pastry?

To create gelatinous textures in pastry, it is important to ask yourself some questions beforehand. What type of gelatinous consistency do you need for your preparation? Do you want a gelatin to use hot or cold? Do you need to freeze the preparation? Also, if you are vegan, you will be interested in looking for substitutes for traditional gelatin, as it comes from animal origin.

In this article, you will find answers to all these questions and learn how to make different gelatinous textures according to your needs.

What is a Gelling Agent?

Gelling agents are a group of texturizers that allow you to make gelatins (gels in the strict sense). They are products that, due to their structure, have the capacity to absorb water, generating a three-dimensional network that converts the liquid into a solid or semi-solid.

The characteristics that basically differentiate gelling agents are:

• Origin: animal or vegetable.
• Texture or type of gelation: soft, hard, creamy, brittle, elastic, thermoreversible, etc.
• Temperature: activation temperatures, gelation and melting point.
• Solubility in different media: water, milk, alcohols, citrus fruits, etc.
• Visual characteristics: transparency, opacity, color.

Which Gelling Agent should I Choose According to My Recipe?

Before choosing a gelling agent for a specific use, you should know its possibilities and limitations. The proper choice of gelling agent makes a difference in the texture of your culinary creations.

When you are faced with choosing the right gelling agent for your recipe, it is essential to understand the different options available and their inherent properties. The first and most significant decision you must make is between a gelling agent of animal or vegetable origin. This choice not only affects the origin of the ingredients, but also the characteristics and performance of the gelling agent in your culinary preparation.

Origin

The origin of a gelling agent means the origin of the raw material. For example, Agar-Agar is extracted from the cell walls of red algae. Depending on the origin, the characteristics of the gelling agent may vary.

Animal origin: is the collagen that is extracted from the connective tissue of mammalian animals and fish. It is composed of proteins and is widely used in pastry to create gelatinous textures.

Its main characteristics are:

• Good resistance to freezing: as they are proteins, they have a lot of water retention power, which favors that in freezing and thawing processes, syneresis (loss of water) does not occur.
• Very low gelling temperature; so they are melting in the mouth.
• They are solubilized at low temperature. (40 degrees)

Its different formats are:

• Gelatin sheets.
• Granulated gelatin.
• Instant powdered gelatin.

Vegetable origin: gelling agents of vegetable origin are carbohydrates of various origins (such as algae, citrus fruits or fermented bacteria).

Although we can include many of its characteristics, these vary greatly, so our offer of vegetable gelatins is very wide.

Its main features are:

• They are resistant to high temperatures once gelled.
• Depending on the type of vegetable gelling agent, different textures are obtained.
• They are an alternative to gelatin of animal origin, for vegan products.

Gelatines of vegetable origin are generally found in powder form and to activate them they are usually dissolved in cold and brought to a boil.

We can differentiate them by origin:

• Algae: Agar-Agar, Gracila Gel, Kappa, Iota.
• Microbial: from the fermentation of bacteria such as Gellan gum.
• Fruits: HM Pectins and LM Pectins

The Sosa range of gelling agents ranges from pure gelling agents to gelling mixtures formulated to facilitate their incorporation or for specific uses. For example: Vegetable gelling agent to achieve very elastic gelatins or Vegan mousse gelatine specifically formulated for the gelation of vegan mousses.

Now you know the different ingredients to prepare the different gelatinous textures in pastry! If you want to discover other textures, we invite you to read: How to create different textures in pastry?