Effects and mechanism of sucrose on retrogradation, freeze–thaw stability, and texture of corn starch–tamarind seed polysaccharide complexes

In this work, we investigated the effects of sucrose (0%–30%, w/w) on the pasting properties, retrogradation, freeze–thaw stability, texture, and the possible interaction with corn starch–tamarind seed polysaccharide (CS–TSP) mixtures. Sucrose increased the gelatinization temperature (from 76.4 ± 0.1 to 87.6 ± 0.0°C), peak viscosity (from 3358.0 ± 1.4 to 7732.5 ± 44.5 cP), and final viscosity (from 3514.0 ± 31.1 to 7724.5 ± 142.1 cP) of CS–TSP mixtures. Further, sucrose limited the increase in the storage modulus of the mixture pastes, transfer of bound water to free water, and water syneresis during the freeze–thaw process. Additionally, sucrose resulted in a more complete gel structure with stronger resistance. Scanning electron microscope and fluorescence labeling analysis showed that the presence of sucrose helped in tight entanglement or cross-link between amylose or between amylose and TSP. Thus, these results in this study could help to improve physicochemical properties of starch-based products, such as glue pudding and other starch desserts.