1. Introduction
Aromatic caramel results from a non-enzymatic browning reac- tion that involves the dehydration of sugars during heat treatment under specific conditions, either dry or in a concentrated solution, either alone or with additives. The non-volatile fraction of caramel accounts for 90–95% of the mass and is composed of high molecu- lar weight compounds such as oligosaccharides and brown poly- mers. The remaining 5–10% of the mass represents the volatile fraction which is made up of hundreds of low molecular weight compounds mainly responsible for the typical caramel odour. Because odour is one of the main factors that contributes to con- sumer acceptability of food products, the identification of volatile compounds is an important concern for the food industry.
Volatile compounds obtained from the thermal degradation of carbohydrates were studied extensively in the 1960s (Fagerson,1969) but surprisingly, only a few more recent studies have dealt with caramel itself (Cottier, Descotes, Neyret, & Nigay, 1989;