Development of Hydrocolloids Incorporated Dragon Fruit Leather by conductive hydro drying: Characterization and Sensory Evaluation

The purpose of this research was to develop dragon fruit leather with different hydrocolloids. The prepared fruit puree formed with the incorporation of hydrocolloid was dried by conductive hydro drying at three different temperatures of water 70°C, 80°C, and 90°C to form fruit leather. The fruit leather was prepared without hydrocolloids and used three hydrocolloids such as gellan gum, xanthan gum, and guar gum. The specific energy consumption of formed leathers was lower than 2.097 kWh/g. The total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of the four types of leather formed at a temperature of 90°C were found to be in the range of 4.087 - 5.028 mg GAE/g d.w, and 73.685 - 82.467% respectively. The textural properties like hardness, springiness, cohesiveness, and gumminess were analyzed. The color parameters were also analyzed, and the change in color with respect to white tile was studied. The prepared four dragon fruit leather sensory analysis was conducted with 35 judges, and their preferences were recorded based on the linguistic variables color, aroma, texture, and taste. Based on the preferences of the judges, the fruit leather was ranked with the help of fuzzy logic analysis which suggested that the dragon fruit leather prepared with xanthan gum was preferred over the other three dragon fruit leather varieties. The selected quality attributes were also ranked, where taste is the most preferred attribute, followed by texture, aroma, and color of the fruit leather.