The popularity of chocolate around the world combined with high level of health related awareness of the contemporary consumer imposed the idea of enriching chocolate with probiotic bacterial strains. The main objective of this work was to obtain a potentially probiotic chocolate by using microencapsulated Lactobacillus strains. The Lactobacillus strains were encapsulated as micro-beads by using sodium alginate and guar gum and these beads were incorporated into chocolate suspension. This probiotic milk chocolate displayed the same sensory properties as the reference, probiotic-free chocolate. The number of live bacterial cells was maintained at the functional level of 107 - 109 cfu/g after keeping for 4 weeks at 4oC. Neither the texture nor the total and volatile acidity of chocolate masses were changed by addition of the microencapsulated Lactobacillus cells. | Studies on process standardization and sensory evaluation of probiotic chocolate
