Development of cookie composited with canistel (Pouteria campechiana) and rice flour

Consumers prefer cookies with a variety of flavors and nutritional values. Industries are competing to introduce quality cookies being blended in proportion with wheat or rice flour. Canistel is one of the underutilized fruits available in Sri Lanka. It has potential nutritional value and various health benefits due to the presence of functional compounds in it. Its local abundance prompted the researchers to focus on how it could be incorporated into food products. Therefore, this study was focused on developing flour from canistel fruit and evaluating the possibility of utilizing it as a food ingredient particularly in bakery industry. The canistel chips were dried, powdered, sieved into a fine particle of flour. The prepared flour was added with rice flour as canistel flour: rice flour 75:25, 65:35, 50:50, 35:65, and 25:75, and used as composite flour mixture for the preparation of cookie. The physical, nutritional, and sensory quality properties were evaluated. The data were statistically analyzed with SPSS. The nutritional parameters such as moisture, ash, protein, fat, carbohydrates, and energy were found to be varying between 6.71 to 11.73 %, 1.13 to 2.17 %, 12.97 to 13.76 %, 16.49 to 19.56 %, 52.78 to 62.70 % and 326.66 to 402.63 Kcal/100g, respectively. The physical properties such as density, weight, volume and spread ratio of cookies, showed significant differences (p<0.05) between different treatments. The cookies made with 65:35 percent rice: canistel flour blend received the highest scores for taste, crispiness, and color. Accordingly, the physical, nutritional, and sensory properties of treatment No: T4 with the blend of 65: 35% rice: canistel flour was selected as the best. Therefore, this underutilized fruit could be exploited for the development of new snack varieties with a blend of rice flour that could contribute to the food security of the Sri Lankan people.