Quality Characteristics of Gluten-Free Cookies Prepared from Green Banana and Rice Flour

Yap, Huan Yi (2023) Quality Characteristics of Gluten-Free Cookies Prepared from Green Banana and Rice Flour. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Banana is one of the most frequently wasted fruits due to defects in size and appearance caused by harvesting and transportation. In order to reduce food waste, green unripe bananas could be used to produce gluten-free foods such as cookies. The present project aims to develop gluten-free cookies using green unripe banana flour and to evaluate the effect of replacing wheat flour in cookies with different percentages of green banana flour (GBF) and rice flour (RF). In this project, the treatments are control (100% wheat flour) and sample cookies with 25% GBF:75% RF, 50% GBF:50% RF and 75% GBF:25% RF. The samples were analysed for colour, water activity, proximate composition, total phenolic content, texture (hardness) and antioxidant properties. All the GBF-RF cookies showed significant statistical differences (p < 0.05) in colour with lower lightness (L*), higher redness (a*) and lower yellowness (b*) than the control. Besides, all GBF-RF cookies showed significantly reduced water activity. 25% and 50% GBF cookies had significantly lower hardness than the control. For proximate composition, all GBF-RF cookies had significantly lower moisture content, crude protein content and crude fat content as well as significantly higher total ash content and carbohydrate content as compared to the control (p < 0.05). 50% and 75% GBF cookies showed significantly higher crude fibre content than the control. Furthermore, the total phenolic content of 50% and 75% GBF cookies was significantly higher than the control and hence had significantly higher DPPH free radical scavenging activity and ferric-reducing antioxidant power (p < 0.05). Lastly, for the sensory evaluation, the control obtained the highest mean score for appearance, flavour, texture and overall acceptability while 25% GBF cookies obtained the highest mean score in odour. In the preference test, control was most preferred by the panellists, followed by 25% GBF cookies and 75% GBF cookies. Overall, cookies with 75% GBF:25% RF can provide better options to wheat-based cookies, but the sensory aspect needs to be improved. Keywords: Gluten-free cookies, green banana flour, rice flour, proximate, sensory evaluation