Feasibility of producing foman cookies by substituting brown sugar and stevia natural sweetener powder instead of white sugar in cookies cream

Awareness of proper nutrition leads to people's health, therefore if low-fat and low-sugar foods is produced, this can lead to an increase in the health of the society. Foman traditional cookie is one of the popular confectionery products in the north of Iran, which is made from wheat flour, butter, sugar, cinnamon and walnuts. This research deals with the feasibility of producing traditional Foman cookies by removing white sugar from cookie's cream and replacing it brown sugar and stevia natural sweetener powder.

The changes in the levels of moisture, total sugar, calories and acidity were measured after substituting brown sugar and stevia powder (in terms of flavoring) instead of white sugar in cookie dough during a 14-day storage period at 25 degrees Celsius. In this method, brown sugar was replaced by 40, 50 and 60% of the removed white sugar in cookie core, and stevia was used to compensate sweetness taste. The changes of moisture, total sugar, calories and acidity after this replacement was measured during the 14-day storage period at 25°C.The color, taste, texture hardness and general acceptability of the cookies were investigated by sensory evaluation.

The results show that the replacement of brown sugar and stevia in cookie core has caused significant changes in dependent variables such as moisture, total sugar, acidity, calories, and kernel color, therefore kernel color and moisture have increased, but total sugar has a decreasing trend, calorie of cookies has increased as compared to the control sample due to the replacement of dry matter instead of white sugar. There is no significant change in taste, hardness of texture and overall acceptance.   

In the examination of the samples in the selected intervals, the highest agreement with the control sample in terms of changes in dependent variables such as moisture, total sugar, acidity, color can be observed in the sample with 40% brown sugar and 60% stevia. Substitution of stevia and brown sugar instead of white sugar led to a decrease in total sugar, but there was no visible effect on taste, texture hardness, and overall acceptance, although time had a negative effect on most of the studied parameters. By increasing the amount of brown sugar, the agreement with the control sample decreases, but the amount of calories has a reverse trend due to the change of dry matter in the core.