Microbiological, Physicochemical, and Sensory Characters of Synbiotic Ice Cream from Fermented Milk Using Lactiplantibacillus plantarum subsp. Plantarum Dad-13 Combined with Inulin

Ice cream, which includes dairy product, is a good carrier of addition probiotics and prebiotics. This study was designed to assess the microbiological, physicochemical, and sensory properties of the ice cream. The characteristics of ice cream made from fermented milk using L. plantarum Dad-13 combined with inulin (0%, 1%, and 2%) were evaluated such as cell viability, pH, titratable acidity, overrun, melting rate, sensory evaluation with hedonic test, microstructure using scanning electron microscopy, and volatile organic compounds using HS-GC-MS. The results showed that cell viability in synbiotic ice cream with 2% inulin decreased by 1 log cycle, which showed the most stable value during storage until the 12th week was still 1.03 x 107 CFU/g. Synbiotic ice cream with 2% inulin showed the highest overrun value of 35.72% and the slowest melting rate of 40.71% of ice cream melted in 20 minutes. Overall attributes in the hedonic test of synbiotic ice cream with 2% inulin showed a value of 4, which means the most preferred by panelists. Hence, this research showed that ice cream containing 2% inulin, in particular, has a better microstructure due to the prevention of ice recrystallization, which results in smaller ice crystals. The ketone volatile organic compound only found in ice cream with 1% inulin was cyclopentadecanone, 2-hydroxy- with percentage of area 10.25% while for ice cream that contains 2% inulin, it was oxacyclotetradecan-2-one with percentage of area 9.31%. Furthermore, several volatile organic compounds, such as 2-trifluoroacetoxydodecane, 4-propionyloxytridecane, and anthracene, 9-butyltetradecahydro, were only found in the synbiotic ice cream. This study has the potential to be a novel functional food containing probiotic indigenous L. plantarum Dad-13 and prebiotic inulin.