Quality and antioxidant properties of jelly incorporated with corn concentrate

Abstract

Gummy jellies are popular desserts or snacks and widely consumed by various age groups around the world. Consumers' new needs and desire for a healthy food have promoted supplementation of the functional food ingredient to snack foods. As corn concentrate (CC) possesses diverse functional activities, it may be beneficial to increase its consumption via supplementation into snack foods such as jelly. There has been a scarcity of reports on antioxidant potential of CC and how much level is enhanced which occurs upon making CC incorporated jellies. This prompted us to undertake the present investigation with the objective to evaluate the physical, sensory, and antioxidant characteristics of jellies containing various levels of CC (3%, 6%, 9%, and 12%). The pH level (6.98 to 6.45), moisture content (89.34 to 80.06%, w.b.), and lightness (L*) (20.79 to 16.50) decreased significantly while total soluble solids (1.04 to 2.48 °Brix), hardness (3.47 to 5.57 N), redness (a*) (-0.45 to 4.95), and yellowness (b*) (4.76 to 7.70) increased significantly with increasing levels of added CC (p<0.05). In addition, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (0.62 to 3.45%) and 2,2’-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (0.22 to 1.88%) radical scavenging activities significantly increased (p<0.05), and they were well-correlated. Consumer acceptance test indicated that addition of 6% CC had a favorable effect on consumer preferences for most attributes. Based on our study, jelly with 6% CC is recommended for developing CC-added jellies with improved overall qualities without sacrificing consumer acceptability while taking advantage of the functional properties of CC.