The Complexities of Pumpkin Flavor
Every holiday season, consumers eagerly await the arrival of pumpkin flavored products. Each year, there are new items on store shelves and in restaurants for consumers to enjoy. These include pumpkin breads and cakes, pumpkin flavored frosting, pumpkin flavored coffee creamer, chocolates and other confectionery treats, and even pumpkin flavored ice creams, gelatos, and other frozen sweets.
What most consumers don’t realize is just how complex the creation of their favorite seasonal treat can be. Real pumpkin puree is too delicate for use in most products, and as such there are very few pumpkin-flavored food items that utilize real pumpkin in their creation. Instead, spices and other food flavor ingredients are used to create these products. The main spices used in pumpkin pie instantly bring to mind the flavor of pumpkin, even if they do not replicate the flavor of pumpkin itself.
The main spice flavorings that are used in the creation of pumpkin flavored food products are cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It can be difficult to utilize these spices in their natural form, especially in the creation of products such as pumpkin flavored coffee creamer. This is why these three flavors are often recreated using natural and synthetic flavor ingredients. The flavor of cloves can be created using Advanced Biotech’s Natural Eugenol, cinnamon flavor can be produced with Natural Cinnamic Acid, and Natural Nutmeg Oil allows flavorists an easy way to add nutmeg spice to a product.
These spices are then backed up by a number of other flavor ingredients to create the natural pumpkin flavor that flavorists desire. While each flavorist will have his or her preferred method for creating pumpkin flavor, and the ingredients used in a pumpkin flavor will likely vary depending on the type of product that is being created, these recipes are almost always very complex. Up to eighty different flavor ingredients may go into the creation of a pumpkin flavor. These different ingredients serve to replicate a different characteristic that adds to the taste and feel of pumpkin for consumers.
Among the most prominent types of flavors that can be used in pumpkin are those that create a creamy or dairy flavor. Advanced Biotech’s Natural Butyl Lactate is just one of many types of flavor ingredients that can create the sweet, milky flavor needed for pumpkin. Other common components of pumpkin flavor include flavor ingredients that create buttery notes. Natural Vanillin is another example of a flavor that might appear in a pumpkin flavor, as vanilla is often used in pumpkin pie, and can also serve to add warmth to the flavor. Flavor ingredients that can create toasted notes, caramel notes, and even maple notes may also be added to enhance the overall flavor of the product.
When it comes to creating a pumpkin flavor, the thing that is important for flavorists to take note of is that creating an overall flavor experience is more important than perfectly capturing the flavor of pumpkin itself. Pumpkin flavored products are warm, inviting, and perfectly capture the essence of the holiday season, whether it is in a latte, a cupcake, or a piece of chocolate.