Physicochemical and Functional Properties of Pumpkin (Cucurbita Pepo) Pulp Flour and Acceptability of its Inclusion in Cake

Abstract

A study of the Physico-chemical and functional properties of pumpkin / wheat flour blends and sensory attributes of cakes made from the flour blends where evaluated in the food science laboratory of Rivers State University. The physico-chemical analysis were carried out using standard AOAC methods with 100% wheat flour serving as control. Result of chemical analysis of wheat/pumpkin composite flour blends ranged from 6 .51 – 11.78%, 0.58 – 6.74%, 5.81 – 11.97%, 0.90 – 1.56%, 0.51 – 6.93% and 72.22 – 73.68% for moisture, ash, protein, fat, crude fiber and carbohydrate, respectively. There was a decrease in moisture, fat, protein and carbohydrate and an increase in ash, and crude fiber as the level of pumpkin flour substitution increased. Starch, amylose and amylopectin ranged from 37.68 – 83.82%, 8.76 – 24.64 % and 28.92 – 59.18%, respectively. The lowest starch (37.68%) content was recorded in pumpkin flour made entirely of pumpkin. Depending on the mixing ratios between flour and pumpkin flour, a wide range of functional properties were recorded, including 1.04 – 5.30 ml/g water absorption capacity, 0.58 – 0.61 g/ml bulk density, 8.50 – 16.50% least gelation concentration, 1.07 – 54.26% foaming capacity, 0.00 – 27.84% foaming stability, 53.71 – 93.33% swelling capacity, 45.46 – 48.49% emulsion capacity and 35.50 – 56.02% emulsion stability. Sensory evaluation of the cakes showed no significant difference (p>0.05) in general acceptability between the control and up to 70% substitution with pumpkin flour. The scores ranged from 2.61 – 8.22, 4.13 – 7.13, 5.04 – 7.70, 3.87 – 7.70 and 2.74 – 7.83 for taste, appearance, colour, mouthfeel and general acceptability respectively. Incorporation of pumpkin flour to wheat flour increased the ash and crude fiber content of the composite flour.

Enrichment of Fermented Sorghum Flour with Pumpkin Pulp and Seed for Production of A Vitamin A and Iron Enhanced Supplementary Food

“…The shredding was done to ensure that there was sufficient drying of the pumpkins (Sharma, 2017). Pumpkin shredded strips were then placed into an electric drier at a temperature of 60 0 c for 48 hours as described by Joy et al (2021) who obtained a moisture content of 6.5%. The dried strips of pumpkin fruit were then milled using a fine mill and passed through a 200 µm sieve size mill (Kiharason, 2019) and put into air tight containers awaiting analysis.…”