Vapour partition of aroma compounds in strawberry flavoured custard cream and effect of fat content

Gas–matrix partition coefficients (k) of volatile compounds of a strawberry flavour added to a complex model system (custard dessert, COST action 921 recipe) were determined. The influence of fat content on the volatility of the strawberry aroma compounds was investigated using full fat milk- (FFM) and skimmed milk- (SM) custards. For the purpose of this study, the phase ratio variation (PRV) method was used because of its easy application for a mixture of volatiles without requiring any calibration. From the 15 aroma compounds present in the flavouring mixture, seven were volatile enough to be detected and concentrated enough to allow the calculation of k values. Gas–matrix partition coefficients were compared to gas–water partition coefficients. For some aroma compounds (ethyl hexanoate, ethyl butanoate, and hexanal) a significantly lower k value was observed in FFM-custard than in water, indicating a retention effect caused by the matrix. As expected, the fat content and the hydrophobicity of the volatile compounds were of great importance to explain the differences between partition coefficients in SM custards and in FFM custards: for SM-custard, a higher release in the vapour phase was observed than for FFM-custard; the more hydrophobic the aroma compound, the higher the effect. Moreover, ethyl butanoate and hexanal were less retained in SM-custard than in water. This may be attributed to a salting-out effect due to sucrose. The results of this study indicate the importance of the interactions between volatiles and non-volatile compounds as well as of the chemical and physical properties of the aroma compounds in affecting the composition of the gas phase at equilibrium with a complex matrix. More than that, they provided a basis for the studies developed within COST action 921 with the flavoured custard model system.