Effect of cream treatment on phospholipids and protein recovery in butter‐making process

Abstract

Summary A simple approach is proposed to recover native protein and phospholipid fractions from butter‐making process using equipments available in dairy‐processing plant. A washing treatment was used to remove protein from the cream and increase the phospholipids purity in buttermilk. Cream from a first separation was diluted with milk ultrafitration permeate and separated a second time. A 10X dilution factor reduced protein concentration in the cream from 1.6 ± 0.2 to 0.52 ± 0.03%. As a result, the phospholipids to protein ratio in buttermilk increased from 53 ± 10 to 172 ± 7 mg g −1 . In butter‐making process, an important portion of total phospholipids (∼26%) is retained in butter. Butter serum made from washed cream could then be used to produce phospholipid concentrates with phospholipids to protein ratio of 473 ± 3 mg g −1 . Interestingly, the extracts from butter serum are characterised by a higher proportion of sphingomyelin compared with those from buttermilk.