Discovering cake’s ingredients: Gellan Gum

Hello, fellow cake bakers! Today, let’s check out this useful ingredient in the cake-making. I mean the gellan gum. Whether you’re an experienced pastry chef or a home cook, gellan gum is here to make your dishes better. We will speak about its benefits, production methods, storage tips, and some recipes.

What Is Gellan Gum?

Gellan gum is a food additive typically used to bind, stabilize, or texturize processed foods. It’s similar to other gelling agents, including guar gum, carrageenan, agar agar, and xanthan gum. While it grows naturally on water lilies, it can also be artificially produced by fermenting sugar with a specific strain of bacteria. This versatile ingredient has gained popularity in the culinary world due to its effectiveness in small amounts and its ability to produce clear gels that aren’t sensitive to heat.

Benefits for Human Health

  1. Digestive Health: Gellan gum acts as a valuable source of dietary fiber, promoting better digestion and overall gut health.

  2. Reduced Inflammation: In our modern diets, inflammation is a prevalent issue. Adding gellan gum to your meals may help reduce inflammation.

Production Method

Gellan gum is mainly produced through batch fermentation of microorganisms. Here’s how it works:

  1. Prepare a medium containing carbon sources, nitrogen sources, inorganic salts, and other required nutrients.

  2. Inoculate with a new seed and start fermentation after high-temperature sterilization.

  3. The gellan-producing bacterium, Pseudomonas elodea, ferments carbohydrates to produce this high-viscosity biogum2.

How to Use Gellan Gum

  1. Gelling Agent: Gellan gum lends a creamy texture to desserts and gives fillings for baked goods a jelly-like consistency. It reduces the likelihood that delicate delicacies (like crème brûlée or flaming sorbet) will melt when subjected to heat.

  2. Stabilizing Nutrients: Gellan gum is commonly added to fortified juices and plant milks. It helps stabilize supplemental nutrients like calcium, keeping them mixed into the beverage rather than settling at the bottom of the container.

Useful Facts

  • Gellan gum is particularly popular in vegan packaged foods because it serves as a plant-based alternative to gelatin.

  • You’ll find it listed on food labels as either “gellan gum” or E418.

    Tanya Novak the chef and a cake expert :-)

Sergii Novak