Possibility low sugar cupcake production by using date liquid sugar

The cake is a very diverse variety of flour products that are popular among people, especially children and adolescents. This product is a sweet with a special soft tissue that flour, oil, sugar and eggs are the main its ingredients (Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran 2006). Despite the benefits of sucrose as a natural sweetener with desirable performance characteristics, due to problems with blood pressure, heart disease, tooth decay, obesity and increased blood glucose and insulin levels, especially for harmful diabetics in addition, due to economic and technological issues, increasing research are under way to replace sugar with other sweeteners. One of the important issues regarding the replacement of sugar in food products is the choice of the type of sweetener to replace and how to preserve the quality of the product during the storage period (Gohari Ardabili et al 2005). Sugar is an essential ingredient in the preparation of various types of cakes, which in addition to the role of sweetening has a great effect on the physical and chemical properties of the product (Specter and Setser 1994). There are many substitutes for sugar for use in baking products. For example, raw honey, maple syrup, molasses, stevia, xylitol, brown rice syrup, sugarcane condensate extract, glucose syrup, brown sugar, dextrose, corn syrup, invert sugar, malt extract and date sugar are the natural substitutes for sugar in the baked goods (Asghar et al 2006, Obiegbuna et al 2013). Considering the nutritional properties and high sugar content, date palms are used as a desirable substitute to sugar in food formulations to increase nutritional value and avoid sucrose complications. One of the products produced from dates is honey or date liquid sugar, which contains compounds such as glucose, fructose, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, and because of the solid particles being separated from the liquid portion of the product, it can be used to prepare the syrup and clear beverages (Kordi et al 2010). Date liquid sugar is concentrate of clear and bleached date syrup that is produced after extraction date juice with removing pectin compound, protein, fiber and its color is brown to yellow. Its properties are similar to honey bee honey, and this product has high functional and nutritional value. In this study, date liquid sugar was used as a replacement for sugar in cake production with the aim of evaluating the physicochemical and sensory properties of the cake. The date liquid sugar used in this work was purchased from Dambaz Company and wheat flour was purchased from Tavakkol factory of Kerman. Other materials including sugar, oil, egg and baking powder purchased from local market of Kerman. Sugar substitution with date liquid sugar in this research was 25, 50, 75 and 100 percent After cooking, cakes were cooled at room temperature for about one hour and then packaged in zip-kip polyethylene bags and stored at refrigerator (4-6 °C) until performing tests. The cake was evaluated in terms of physicochemical (including weight loss, pH, porosity, density, moisture, hardness of texture and color of crust and crumb) and sensory (texture, crust color, taste and total acceptance) properties. The weight loss calculated by measuring the difference of weight before and after baking. PH was measured by a digital pH meter. Cake moisture content was determined by drying samples at 105±2°C in a hot air oven. The volumes of the cake samples were measured by the seed replacement method and then density was calculated by dividing the volume by the weight (Sahin and Sumnu 2006). For determining of porosity of cake crumb, image processing technique used.Cross sectional image of cake was documented by a table top scanner (HP Scanjet 2400, China) with 300 ppi. The images were analyzed by ImageJ software and percentage of porosity was calculated (Turabi et al 2010). The hardness of the cake was evaluated in two different days, 4 and 8 days after production, using a texture analyzer machine. The first, the cake samples were cut into cubes of 25 × 25 × 20 mm then compressed by a plate probe (50 × 100 mm) at 50 mm/min speed for 10 mm (Aghamohammadi et al 2012). Color measurements were done using a Hunterlab Colorimeter (Celik et al 2007). Sensory evaluation was carried out by 5-point Hedonic Scale. The cakes were estimated for the sensory attributes by selected semi-trained panelists. The panelists were asked to evaluate the samples and score them between 1 (most disliked) to 5 (most liked). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for data using MSTAT-C software. Differences between the mean values were also determined using Duncan’s Multiple Range test (P<0.05). The results of this research showed that date liquid sugar had a significant effect on physicochemical characteristics and sensory properties of samples. By increasing of date liquid sugar in cake formulation weight loss, pH, porosity, lightness of crust and crumb, yellowness of crust decreased and density, moisture, hardness of product texture, and redness of crust and crumb increased. The least value of weight loss (18.2%), pH (6.59), porosity (13.6%) and most value of density (0.5 g/cm3), darkness of crust and crumb of cake (respectively 33.21 and 43.62) were related to substitution level of 100%. The sensory evaluation results indicated that all sensory scores of cake decreased with increasing level of date liquid sugar. However, no significant difference was found between the crust color, texture and total acceptance scores of the low sugar cake and the control in the replacement levels of 25 and 50. Also, based on the mean comparison results, the taste score of the cake has been significant with the control just at the level of 100% replacement. Between different levels of date liquid sugar, the Levels of 25 and 50% had less negative effects on physicochemical properties of the cake. On the other hand, the low sugar cakes with 25 and 5o% date liquid sugar showed sensorial attributes similar to the control cake. It can be concluded that date liquid sugar can be replaced with sugar up to 50% to the cupcake formulation without adverse effects on the quality of cakes.