Value Addition on Nutritional and Sensory Properties of Biscuit Using Desert Truffle (<i>Terfezia claveryi</i>) Powder

Abstract

Desert truffle is popular nutritious food that shows high content of protein, fibers, phenolic compounds and health promoting bioactive compounds. The aim of present study is to produce fortified functional biscuits by incorporated Dessert Truffle Powder (DTP). The effect of replacing 0 (control), 5%, 10% and 15% of wheat flour with DTP on chemical composition, antioxidant activity, physical properties and sensory characteristics of biscuits was investigated. The results revealed that the crude protein, ash and crude fiber content of prepared biscuits improved with the incorporation of DTP. Phenolic contents of fortified biscuits were increased gradually with increasing the level of DTP addition. Furthermore, all the selected levels of DTP incorporated in prepared biscuits showed a good ability in radical scavenging activity which ranged from 21.52% to 42.11%, compared to 2.08% in case of control biscuit. Data also indicated that replacing 5% and 10% of wheat flour with DTP in biscuit preparation resulted in high significance of spread ratio 8.78 and 8.59, respectively when compared to control biscuit which given 7.53. The lightness (L) and total intensity of biscuits were decreased from 71.19 to 60.31 and from 76.09 to 66.87 with increasing the substitution level of DTP in biscuits from 5% to 15%, respectively. Biscuits incorporated with DTP at up to 10% had the acceptable mean scores by panelists for all sensory attributes. There was no significant difference in overall acceptability of biscuits incorporated with 5% and 10% of DTP which recorded 7.4 and 7.5 and control biscuit 8.2, respectively. Thus, the present study concluded that replacing up to 10% of wheat flour with DTP enhanced the nutritional quality and antioxidant activity with acceptable sensory characteristics of biscuits. So, our study recommends encouraging the bakery products producers to incorporated DTP at 10% in biscuits production.