Effect of microwave pre-treatment on physico-chemical properties of donut containing Persian gum and carrot pomace powder sources of dietary fiber

Introduction: Increased awareness of diet-health association has led to the growth of health food industry. Deep-fat fried foods such as donuts enjoy wide popularity owing to their taste, distinctive flavor, aroma and crunchy texture. There is, however, a great health concern over large fat content of fried foods. Incorporating the dietary fiber such as hydrocolloids into the food substrate in the batter formulation is one of the most effective strategies to decrease fat uptake in fried foods. Dietary fibers act as water binders in a coating or batter formulation through which reduce fat uptake of fried foods. That is, an increase of water content of food could lead to a decrease of oil penetration during the frying process. Persian gum (PG), as a novel gum, is exudates of the wild or mountain almond trees (the main source is Amygdalus scoparia Spach). Carrot pomace is a fibre-rich by-product of carrot juice industries which contains approximately 80% of carrot carotenes. Carrot juice yield is reported to be only 60-70% and the remaining pomace is usually disposed of as feed or fertilizer. There is an increasing interest in microwaving foods for several reasons: it is faster than conventional methods, the energy consumption is often lower and foods cooked by microwaving maintain nutritional integrity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effect of microwave pre-treatment on physico-chemical properties of donut containing Persian gum and carrot pomace powder sources of dietary fiber. Materials and methods: Donuts were prepared according to the formulation reported by Melito and Farkas (2012). Ingredients used in control donut formulation were consisted of 100 g of wheat flour (9 g/100g), 38 g of water, 9g of Shortening, 13g of Egg, 13g of water for yeast, 6.3g of sugar, 6.3g of nonfat dried milk powder, 3g of active dried yeast, 1.6g of Vanilla extract, 1.6g of baking powder, and 1.6g of Salt. For the making of donuts, the flour blends were prepared by replacing wheat flour with 1.2 g/100g PG and 645 g/100g CPP. As well, water was added at 48.16 g/100g based on flour weight. The exudate gums of mountain almond trees were collected in Lorestan province. In order to eliminate foreign matters such as dust and dirt, the PG was washed three times with its threefold weight of ethanol (96% w/v) for 15 min under constant stirring. After removing ethanol by drying in an oven (at 60o C for 6 h) the PG was ground using a coffee grinder (model 320, Spain), sieved (180 µm) and packaged in polyethylene packs and then stored in 4oC. Fresh carrots were purchased from a local market. Carrots were washed and then pressed with a juice extractor and the resultant pomace was collected. The carrot pomace was blanched in water (80 ± 2°C for 3 min) and then cooled in cold water (4o C). The pomace water was drained with cheese-cloth prior to drying. Finally, the carrot pomace was dried in an oven (60o C for 12 h). The dried pomace was ground using a coffee grinder to fine powder. The carrot pomace powder was sieved (180 µm) and packed in polyethylene packs and then stored in 4oC. Specific volume of donuts was determined using the rapeseed displacement AACC method. Moisture content of donuts crumb was measured using a oven at 105 oC for 3. The fat content of dried donuts was determined by Soxhlet extraction with petroleum ether for 5 h. Firmness and springiness were measured in triplicate using a TA.XT2i Texture Analyzer equipped with a 5 kg load cell and a P/35 mm aluminum cylindrical probe. Crumb grain (total number of cells and porosity) and crumb color of donuts were evaluated using an image analysis system consisted of a digital camera, a personal computer and MATLAB R2014a software. The control and optimized donuts were evaluated for acceptance of their appearance, crust color, crumb color, aroma, texture, taste and overall acceptance based on a nine-point hedonic scale. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Box-Behnken design with 3 factors were applied to obtain optimal levels of independent variables including microwave power (300-900 W), microwave time (30-90 s) and frying time (70-130 s). Results and discussion: The results indicatedthat moisture content significantly (p<0.05) decreased whereas oil uptake increased. Moisture loss and fat uptake are two main mass transport phenomena during deep fat frying. The rate of this process is directly related to frying time and temperature. The high microwave power level, microwave time and frying time causes partial evaporation of the water, which moves away from the food through the surrounding oil, and a certain amount of oil is absorbed by the food. Results also showed that firmness of dietary fiber enriched donut significantly (p<0.05) increased with increasing microwave power level, microwave time and frying time. This might be related with the high amount of amylose leached during microwave heating. Conclusion: The optimum condition was found as pre-treatment at 400 W microwave power level for 60 s and then frying process for 108 s. At this condition, the oil content of fried donut was lower than that of conventionally fried ones.