The steady shear viscosity and yield stress of cocoa powder dispersed
in three cocoa butter replacers (CBRs) are measured over a wide range
of powder concentration and temperature. The flow activation energies
of the three CBRs are nearly the same, and close to that of cocoa butt
er. Values of intrinsic viscosity of cocoa powder dispersed in corn oi
l and Socolate 36-38 are in the range of 4.0-5.0, (similar to that in
cocoa butter), suggesting that these two CBRs are good cocoa replacers
. A lower value of intrinsic viscosity is found for the powder dispers
ed in Super YZ-2. Viscosity measurements indicate that all three CBR d
ispersions exhibit Newtonian behavior at low volume fraction, but non-
Newtonian shear thinning characteristics when the volume fraction phi
> 0.3 at 60C. The non-Newtonian behavior can be described by the Casso
n model when phi exceeds a critical value, phi(mo), the maximum packin
g fraction at zero shear. The yield stress can be related to the powde
r volume fraction using a four-parameter equation originally proposed
by Zhou et al. (1995).