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Process Gelatine Correctly – That’s How it Works!

No more fear of gelatin! Gelatine is often required to make cakes, slices, and roulades firm. Processing these is not as tricky as some might think. With our tips & tricks, nothing can go wrong.

Correct dosage of gelatine

The amount of gelatin needed depends on the amount and desired consistency of the mass you want to gel. As a guideline: For 500 ml of liquid, either 1 pack of ground gelatine or 6 sheets of gelatine are used.

Soaking is part of it

Leaf gelatin needs to be soaked in cold water in a wide bowl for about 5 minutes. So that the leaves do not stick together and can swell sufficiently, they should be placed individually in the water. Mix the powdered gelatine with a few tablespoons of the cold mass, juice, cold water, or liqueur (depending on the recipe) in a small saucepan and leave to swell for about 5 minutes.

Cold masses gel

Remove the swollen gelatine leaves from the water, squeeze them out well and dissolve them in a small saucepan over low heat. Here you can also add a few tablespoons of the mass to be gelled or some juice. You can also slowly dissolve swollen powdered gelatine over low heat.

Before you add the gelatine to the rest of the mass, it should be leveled. To do this, stir a few tablespoons of the cold mass into the dissolved gelatine and then mix the gelatine mass with the cold mass.

Hot masses gel

If you want to gel hot masses, you can immediately add the gelatine undissolved to the hot, no longer boiling liquid and stir until it has completely dissolved.

The liquid should not be boiled after the gelatin has been added, otherwise, the gelatin will lose its gelling power.

Tips and tricks

Gelatine is not suitable for creams or jellies with fresh kiwi, pineapple, papaya, and figs, as these contain an enzyme that reduces the gelling power.

A plant-based alternative to gelatin is agar-agar. The difference is that agar-agar has to be boiled for 2 minutes in order to develop its gelling power. It is therefore very suitable for fruit jellies.

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Food

Attention, Animal Ingredients are Hidden Here!

Many products that we would classify as vegetarian contain animal ingredients, hidden as abbreviations in the fine print. Vegetarians and vegans should carefully study the ingredients of these products!

Carefully studying the ingredient list of ready meals and highly processed products is a must for vegetarians and vegans. Because animal ingredients are often hidden in apparently vegetarian products, as our list shows.

Fruit gum does not only contain gelatine

Gummy bears and Co. often contain gelatine – no secret for vegetarians and vegans. But there can be even more in red gummy bears: carmine is the name of the red dye obtained from scale insects. If you do not want to eat animal products, you should look out for the abbreviation “E120” in the list of ingredients of a product – behind it hides a carmine. Since the production of the red dye is quite complex, carmine is being produced more and more synthetically; At the moment, however, the following still applies: Keep your eyes open when buying products that draw attention to themselves with their beautiful red color. Dairy products, juices, and of course a lot of other sweets can also contain carmine.

Cheese: rennet from calves’ stomachs

A specific mixture of enzymes, rennet, is needed for the milk to curdle and make cheese. What many people don’t know is that rennet is traditionally obtained from the stomachs of young calves. To do this, the gastric mucosa is chopped up and the necessary enzymes are chemically extracted.

The good news: only 35 percent of cheese worldwide is still made with natural rennet (source: Vegetarian Association). As an alternative, enzymes from molds are used. Unfortunately, the cheese packaging does not state whether the rennet is natural or synthetic. A prominent example of a cheese that is still made from calf rennet is the Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan. Vegetarians will find Parmesan substitutes under the name “hard cheese”, for example, Alnatura’s “Montello”. If you want to be sure, ask the manufacturer directly.

Chips: lactose and a lot of undeclared

Many crisps not only contain lactose, but also a whole lot of animal products. A large chip producer told the organization Foodwatch that large parts of its range contain animal ingredients, depending on the variety, game, fish, poultry, beef, or pork. This does not have to be stated in the list of ingredients. Because if animal components are used as carriers for flavors and vitamins in the food, they, unfortunately, do not have to be declared under current law.

Peta made a list of vegan kibbles which you can check out here.

Baked goods: Supple thanks to L-cysteine ​​from bristles and feathers

To make flour easier to knead, the addition of L-cysteine ​​is often used in the bakery. This amino acid, which bears the abbreviation E 920, is made from pig bristles and bird feathers. According to current German law, E 920 must be declared on the packaging of baked goods. However, this case law is interpreted differently: “Wissensforum Backwaren e.V. comes to the conclusion that the addition of L-cysteine ​​in flour on packaged bread is not subject to labeling,” says the website www.lebensmittelklarheit.de. The labeling obligation does not apply to rolls sold loose anyway. Vegetarians and vegans, therefore, have to ask their trusted baker. Fortunately, quite a few chains now have vegan bread and vegan rolls on offer.

Wine and vinegar

It is now known that gelatine or proteins from the fish bladder are used in wine production. This method is also used for balsamic vinegar. However, many winegrowers now rely on vegetable proteins to clarify their wines. Vinegar can also be filtered through bentonite, silica, or fine filter paper, for example. Unfortunately, a reference to gelatine as a filtering agent on the packaging is not mandatory. If you are unsure whether a dash of vinegar is vegan or not, it is worth asking the manufacturer directly.

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Food

Saft Ist Vegan? Von Wegen! Diese Safte Enthalten Gelatine

Die Organisation FoodWatch hat verschiedene Säfte getestet und das erschreckende Ergebnis: In mehreren Produkten wurden vermehrt der Einsatz von Rinder- und Schweinegelatine nachgewiesen – ohne dies auf der Verpackung anzugeben. Welche Säfte sind davon betroffen und welche kann man bedenkenlos trinken?

Juice is vegan, of course. It’s just fruit. Or? You really don’t think about the fact that this could contain gelatine when you put the apple juice in the shopping basket in the supermarket. For example, one might frown at first if a juice carries the label “vegan” or “vegetarian”. But a test by the FoodWatch organization has now shown why this is so important.

Why aren’t juices vegan?

The test came about because there are significant gaps in the labeling of the use of animal components in food production. Flavors of animal origin (e.g. in chips), technical additives of animal origin (e.g. in juices), animal cysteine ​​(in bread), or additives of animal origin such as colorings (e.g. in sweets) do not have to be identified.

This is deceptive, especially with plant products, since no animal additives are expected there. Manufacturers often cloud apple juice with gelatine. The gelatine is added when the naturally cloudy juice is filtered and then filtered out again later – the cloudy substances in the apple juice are extracted.

The result: Gelatine is no longer detectable in the clear apple juice product and it, therefore, does not have to be labeled as food containing animal products.

There are also alternative methods of clarifying apple juice: Manufacturers such as Beckers Bester and Eckes Granini, for example, use mechanical filtering, known as ultrafiltration. Plant-based products such as pea protein can also be used instead of animal gelatin.

The result

FoodWatch bought a total of over 30 apple juices from various manufacturers at Edeka, Lidl, and Rewe – both Edeka and Rewe’s own brands and branded products such as Pfanner and Valentina. The test included apple juice, apple nectar, and apple spritzer.

More than every third apple juice or apple nectar failed. The apple spritzers also perform similarly poorly: five out of 14 juices are made using gelatine or clarification with the help of gelatine cannot be ruled out.

By the way, the most commonly used gelatine is pork. Only the manufacturer Lichtenauer stated that they also use beef gelatine in the production of the apple spritzer. Incidentally, both brand manufacturers and private labels are affected: from Albi to Adelholzer to Rewe Bio.

The manufacturers Pfanner, Beckers Bester, and Valentina were praised because they replace the animal gelatine with a plant-based gelatine substitute such as pea gelatine or achieve clarification through ultrafiltration. We have already reported about a juice for vegans in our veggie blog.

​Juices with animal gelatine

These products failed:

  • Albi apple clear:
  • Buchholz apple juice direct juice
  • Obstland Sachsenobst apple juice
  • Lausitzer Lockwitzgrund clear apple
  • From here apple juice
  • Adelholzener Alpenquellen organic apple spritzer
  • Gerolsteiner apple spritzer
  • Lichtenau mineral springs premium spritzer apple
  • We organic apple juice spritzer
  • Yes! apple nectar and yes! apple spritzer
  • Our best choice is apple juice

Clear labeling must be!

FoodWatch says clearly: Anyone who uses animal gelatine in the production of juices must also state this clearly on the packaging. This is the only way the buyer can make an informed decision. This is essential, especially for people who want to consciously avoid animal products!

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