Effects of sucrose crystallization and moisture migration on the structural changes of a coated intermediate moisture food

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether moisture migration and sugar crystallization play an important role in the changes of IMF matrix structure. The migration of water was monitored with changes of water activity in different physical domains of samples during storage, while the crystallization of sucrose was determined with X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The formation of both a hard inner-layer and agglomerated particles in the inner matrix was observed during storage. Our results suggested that both moisture loss and sucrose crystallization were mainly responsible for the formation of the crusty intermediate inner layer, and the agglomerated matrix particles were the result of sucrose crystallization.