Making margarine

How many times have you heard that margarine is manufactured industrially and is full of chemicals? Ever wondered how it’s made? Well, here in Kitchen Chaos, we’re going to make our own margarine! But seeing as this is DIY Science, we’re not going to make it too easy for you.

You will need:

• Two measuring cups, 250ml
• Measuring cylinder, 100ml (or a yoghurt pot)
• Flat spatula
• Spatula
• Ice bath
• Hot plate
• Blender
• A commercial emulsifier (trade name amidan SDM-T, which is essentially a monoglyceride; or alternatively mustard or lecithin)
• Thermometer
• Iced water
• Sunflower oil
• Hardened fats - either lard, cocoa butter, ghee or copha
• Food colourant
• Scales
• 50g of commercial margarine

How much water is in margarine?

First you have to do a small experiment to measure how much water is present in margarine. Get some commercial margarine, place 50g in a glass measuring cylinder and pop it in the oven on a low heat. You can use a yoghurt pot if you like, but only if you keep the temperature quite low. Once it’s melted, let it settle and see how much water there is. Some low-fat margarines contain so much water and emulsifier that the separation is not very clean, you may have to disturb the emulsion with a wire. You might want to write down how much water there is as a percentage value, it will help you in the next step.

Method:

1. Measure the water into the measuring cylinder (or yoghurt pot), add 2-3 drops of food colourant and place in an ice bath.
2. Warm the sunflower oil and hardened fat together on a hot plate until they melt (at about 40^o C). Add the emulsifier and stir vigorously to dissolve. You may need to raise the temperature to 60 - 70^o C for this to happen. DO NOT LET THE MIXTURE WARM BEYOND 80^o C.
3. Once the emulsifier has dissolved, cool the fat blend to 40^o C, taking care to ensure that the fat does not crystallise on the surface of the beaker. Place the fat blend in the blender.
4. Start the blender on a low-to-medium speed, then add the iced water at 2 - 4^o C and increase the speed to medium. An emulsion should form immediately.
5. You now need to cool the emulsion. You should place the mixture in a cup and into the ice bath. Using a flat spatula, keep moving the crystallising fat from the cold surface, using a vigorous scraping and folding motion in a figure of eight.
6. When the mixture has visibly thickened and/or has cooled to below approximately 10^o C, place it in the fridge. The spread should thicken further on standing.

Things to consider:

You’ll notice how we’ve carefully omitted to give you any measures of the ingredients. The experiment requires that you work out the amounts yourself.

1. How much water content is there in the margarine?
2. Is the margarine polyunsaturated?
3. What makes up the unsaturated fats?
4. What makes up the saturated fats?
5. What proportions of the ingredients did you use?

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