Functional and pasting properties of wheat and cooking banana flour blends and their utilization in cookies production

The main objective of this study was to investigate the functional and pasting properties of wheat and cooking banana flour blends and their utilization in cookie production. Wheat and cooking banana composite flour were mixed in the ratios of 100:0, 0:100, 95:5, 90:10, 85:15, and 80:20, coded as samples AKCA, AKCB, AKCC, AKCD, AKCE, and AKCF respectively and used to produce cookies. The cookies were subjected to proximate and sensory evaluation while the flour blends were analyzed for their functional and pasting properties. Proximate analysis of the cookies revealed a significant (p<0.05) increase in moisture (5.81 to 7.80%), ash (4.00 to 5.25%), and crude fibre (2.07 to 3.10%) with a corresponding decrease in protein (8.40 to 7.69%), fat (25.84 to 23.95%) and carbohydrate (53.87 to 52.21%). Results for functional properties revealed a significant (p<0.05) increase in the water absorption capacity (0.75 to 2.28 g/ml) while bulk density and oil absorption capacity ranged from 0.82 to 0.88 g/g and 1.08 to 1.31 g/g, respectively with least gelation concentration of 2%. Results for pasting properties revealed a significant (p<0.05) increase in the peak viscosity (191.25 to 669.10 RVU), trough viscosity (104.70 to 380.54 RVU), breakdown viscosity (85.96 to 288.63 RVU), final viscosity (191.25 to 669.17 RVU), and setback viscosity (94.05 to 139.34 RVU). On the other hand, a decrease in the peak time (6.07 to 4.93 minutes) and pasting temperature (94.80 to 83.33°C) was observed. Sensory evaluation of the cookies showed that the control sample (100% wheat cookies) was the most preferred for colour, texture, taste and overall acceptability. Based on the overall scores, the control sample did not differ significantly (p<0.05) from the cookie samples substituted with cooking banana flour. This, therefore, shows that cooking bananas can be substituted with wheat flour at levels of 0 to 20% for the production of acceptable cookies of nutritional quality. The flour blends may also be utilized in households for the production of other functional bakery products such as bread, biscuits, and cakes thereby reducing the dependency on wheat flour.