Walnut Sauce
Walnut Sauce is a sweetened paste made by grinding roasted walnut kernels into a fluid nut mass and compounding it with sugar, added fat and dairy or plant solids, sold to bakeries as a filling and flavour base.
Walnut kernels carry around 62 to 68 per cent oil, most of it polyunsaturated, so the ground mass is thinner and more fluid than almond or hazelnut paste and needs less added fat to reach a pumpable consistency. The same fatty acid profile makes the product oxidation sensitive, and commercial sauce is normally protected by nitrogen flushing, tocopherol or rosemary extract, and light excluding packaging. The characteristic slight bitterness of walnut comes from tannins in the pellicle, and grades differ in how much of that skin is retained.
The traded form is a brown, smooth to lightly textured paste with a low moisture content, so it stays microbiologically stable through low water activity rather than preservatives, and it does not boil out during baking. It softens on warming to around 40 degrees Celsius for pumping and sets to a spreadable firmness on cooling. Some Chinese market grades are sold with visible walnut pieces suspended in the paste for a granular eating quality in moon cake and pastry fillings.
We source bulk Walnut Sauce from top China manufacturers for our partners. The manufacturer is in Shandong. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
Please send the grade you need, the volume and your destination port, and we will come back with a solution and a price.
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- Function
- Bakery ingredient
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Homogeneous paste, no oil layer on delivery, free from shell fragments |
| Colour | Light to medium brown, uniform |
| Flavour and odour | Roasted walnut, sweet, slight tannic note, no rancidity |
| Walnut content | Declared per grade, 20.0 to 100% |
| Total fat | 30.0 to 45.0% |
| Moisture | Not more than 2.0% |
| Water activity | Not more than 0.50 |
| Particle size, D90 | Not more than 30 micrometres for refined grade |
| Peroxide value | Not more than 2.5 meq O2/kg fat |
| Acid value | Not more than 3.0 mg KOH/g fat |
| Lead | Not more than 0.1 mg/kg |
| Aflatoxin B1 | Not more than 2 microgram/kg |
| Total plate count | Not more than 1000 cfu/g |
| Yeast and mould | Not more than 50 cfu/g |
| Salmonella | Absent in 25 g |
Common Markets Grades
The primary distinction is walnut content. Filling grades used in Chinese pastry typically declare 20 to 40 per cent walnut, with the balance made up of sugar, glucose syrup, vegetable oil and milk or soya solids. Pure walnut paste with no added sugar is traded separately as a compounding ingredient, and blended nut sauces use walnut alongside peanut or sesame to moderate cost and flavour.
Texture grades run from fully refined, milled to below 30 micrometres for a smooth spread, to chunky, in which chopped kernel is folded back into a refined base. Roast level is specified because it drives both colour and the intensity of the roasted note, and a light roast preserves more of the delicate walnut character while a dark roast masks bitterness. Sugar reduced versions built on maltitol, and versions free from added flavouring or colour, are made for clean label bakery programmes.
Applications
- Filling for moon cakes, walnut pastries and Chinese festival baked goods, where the paste supplies both flavour and structure
- Injected filling for buns, breads and doughnuts, stable through baking because it carries almost no free water
- Swirl and layer in cakes, rolls and Danish pastries applied before baking
- Sandwiching cream for biscuits and wafers, blended into the fat phase to avoid moisture transfer
- Spread for toast and breakfast products, sold in cups and jars for food service
- Ripple in ice cream and frozen desserts, where the low water content prevents ice crystal growth at the interface
- Flavour base for walnut milk drinks and plant beverages after dilution and homogenisation
- Component of nougat, halva style confections and nut brittle fillings
- Body and nut note in dessert sauces, mousses and ganache without adding water to the system
China Manufacturers of Walnut Sauce
Top Walnut Sauce manufacturers in China.
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
Walnut sauce is a compound food, not a food additive, so it has no E number. The lecithins, antioxidants and any emulsifiers it contains are authorised additives in the European Union under Regulation 1333/2008 and carry their own E numbers, and in the United States equivalent materials are used under generally recognised as safe status or specific food additive listings. Manufacture for the United States market is subject to the preventive controls rules for human food, including a hazard analysis that must address undeclared allergens and shell fragments.
Walnut is a declarable tree nut allergen in the United States, the European Union, China, Japan and most other importing markets, and dairy or soya solids must also be declared where present. Incoming kernels are controlled for aflatoxins, with the European Union setting maximum levels for aflatoxin B1 and total aflatoxins in tree nuts and the United States applying an action level for total aflatoxins in food. Because of the high polyunsaturated content, buyers commonly specify a peroxide value and an acid value on the certificate of analysis as a rancidity control. Codex general standards for contaminants and for food additives apply in international trade.
Manufacturing Process
Walnut kernels arriving as halves and pieces are inspected and sorted, most often on an optical sorter followed by manual check, to remove shell fragments, which are the most common physical hazard in walnut processing. The kernels are dried to a low moisture and roasted in a hot air or drum roaster to a controlled colour endpoint. Some plants blanch the kernels in hot water and remove part of the pellicle before roasting to reduce bitterness and lighten the finished colour.
Roasted kernels are ground in a colloid mill or stone mill, which ruptures the cells and releases the oil to form a fluid mass. That mass is compounded with icing sugar, glucose syrup, vegetable fat, milk or soya solids, salt and lecithin, then refined in a ball mill or on a roll mill to the target particle size. Antioxidant is dosed at this stage. The sauce is deaerated under vacuum to remove entrained air, which would otherwise accelerate oxidation, then filled warm into pails or drums, nitrogen flushed where specified, and cooled so the fat sets evenly without separation.
