Comparative assessment of maltodextrin and sugar addition on physical and nutritional attributes of Syzygium cumini L. Leather: an optimization study using mixture design

Abstract

Fruit leather is a dehydrated confectionery product, prepared from fruit pulp into thin layer sheet of 2–3 mm thickness. The present study is focused on optimization of Syzygium cumini L. fruit leather using D-optimal mixture design with three independent variables: Syzygium cumini L. pulp, maltodextrin and sugar. Response taken are sensory attributes (color, texture, chewiness, stickiness, flavor, overall acceptability) and the physico-chemical nutritional properties of optimized leather was determined. The optimized formulation of the leather contained 85% pulp, 5.70% maltodextrin, and 9.30% sugar with a thickness of 2.5 mm. Sugar and maltodextrin had significant effects on the desirability of sensory attributes. In addition to this, with the increase in maltodextrin and sugar; the thickness and drying time of the leather increased. Optimized leather contained a high amount of monomeric anthocyanin (140.33 ± 7.47 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside E/g of sample dry sample) and ascorbic acid (15.59 ± 1.62 LAAE/100 g of dry sample) with the total phenolic content of 213.08 ± 18.45 mg GAE/g sample of the dry sample. It also had high antioxidant activity 384.22 ± 12.39 mg GAE/g sample by DPPH assay and 301.78 ± 2.96 mg GAE/g sample analyzed by ABTS assay. The Syzygium cumini L. leather contained 2.75 ± 0.12% protein, 0.53 ± 0.07% fat and 85.94 ± 1.73% carbohydrate with a moisture content of around 10–11%. Thus, leather from Syzygium cumini L. fruit could be a substitution to candies made from sugar syrup, artificial colorant, and flavor.