PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY AND CONSUMER ACCEPTABILITY OF FUNCTIONAL WHITE CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM WITH COCOA EXTRACT
Authors: Chin, H. H.*, Nor Haslita, I., Samuel Yap, K. C. and Arief, H.
Journal Issue: Malaysian Cocoa Journal, Volume 16/2024
Keywords: Functional ice cream, white chocolate, cocoa extract, production technology, consumer acceptability
Published On: 1/10/2024
Abstract
Ice cream is the most consumed frozen dessert. Nevertheless, it is labelled as an unhealthy food. The increasing health awareness has boosted the growing demand for functional foods, including ice cream, which may improve human health and nutrition. Cocoa extract derived from cocoa beans, which contains bioactive compounds has the health benefits of vasodilating, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular protective, neuroprotective, cognitive-enhancing, and chemo-preventive activities. Nonetheless, it has not being utilised in ice cream products. Hence, the objectives of this study were to highlight the production technology of white chocolate ice cream fortified with the wholesomeness of cocoa extract, which is stable and well accepted. Cocoa extract was extracted from freeze-dried fresh cocoa beans using solely water, incubated at 80oC for 15 minutes, filtered, frozen and freeze-dried prior to utilization in ice cream making. The functional ice cream was produced by blending of ingredients, pasteurization, incorporation of cocoa extract into white chocolate ice cream mixture, homogenization, ageing, freezing, and packing into container prior to the analyses (overrun, total solid, melting properties, color, total phenolic content). Consumer acceptability test of the ice cream was conducted by 100 panels to assess the color, white chocolate taste, sweetness, texture, meltability and overall acceptability using 5-point hedonic scale (score 1: dislike extremely; score 2: dislike; score 3: neither dislike nor like; score 4: like; score 5: like extremely). The white chocolate ice cream with added cocoa extract was well accepted by the consumers with an average sensory score of 4 for all the tested sensory attributes. The preferred ice cream has an overrun of 45%, total solids (39.88%), melting rate (0.03 g/minute), color (L*: 87.99, a*: 3.46, b*: 25.56) and total phenolic content of 222.50 ppm gallic acid equivalent per gram of wet sample ice cream.