Carob powder is also used as a food stabilizer and as a darkening agent. T his is a natural product used as a gelling agent, stabilizer or emulsifier in ice-cream, dessert fruit filling and salads. This is also used as a stabilizer, emulsifier, thickener, or to prevent sugar crystallisation in confectionery. An oil called algaroba is extracted from the carob seeds to be used for medicinal purposes. After seed extraction, the pods are roasted, milled and sieved and then stored in controlled conditions to prevent them becoming hard and lumpy.
Carob powder is used in baking and food manufacture.
It is naturally sweet so no added sugar varieties are available. Non-dairy carob bars use vegetable fat, soya flour and soya lecithin as an emulsifier. Although it has only been used in manufacture and baking in Britain for some 20 years, carob is by no means a newly discovered food. The Greek Theophratus recorded in 4BC that his contemporaries called the carob the Egyptian fig. Ancient Egyptians used the gummy properties of carob seed by using it as an adhesive in binding mummies and the pods and seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs.