Effect of lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera, G.) rhizome powder as a fat replacer on the quality attributes of muffins

Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera, G.) is a perennial aquatic plant, which is utilized for a variety of therapeutic and food applications. Muffins are a kind of baking product that is typically consumed for breakfast or as a snack. Currently, many baked goods in the market use fat replacers to lower the overall fat content, while conserving consumer approval. The study's objectives were to produce low-fat muffins and to characterize the types of quality changes that occurred in the muffins. Lotus rhizome was sliced, dried and converted into powder, which used as fat substitute in muffins, at 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% replacement levels, with names as M0, M1, M2, M3 and M4, respectively. Composite flours having these proportions of lotus Rhizome Powder (LRP) were analyzed for proximate and rheological parameters. Increasing levels of LRP caused increased water absorption and dough development time of the composite flours. Proximate analyses of muffins showed highest value of moisture (25.05%), ash (2.43%), fiber (0.99%), protein (11.89%) and NFE (58.45%) in M4. Whereas, fat content and energy value were significantly reduced in M4, as highest fat was found to be in M0 (36.65%) and highest calories in M0 (576.5 kcal), which were significantly reduced to 26.24% and 514.5 kcal, respectively in M4. High yeast and mold count was of M0 at first day as 98 CFU/g, which was increased to 129 CFU/g at day 7, whereas M4 presented this count to be 44 CFU/g at day one, which was increased to 70.33 CFU/g at day 7. Texture analysis showed softest texture of M4 as firmness value was 1887 g, which was significantly high in M0 as 2285 g. The research revealed that M3 best performed out of all treatments as 15% replacement of fat with LRP significantly improved the rheological properties of the flour, ash and fiber content were high, whereas fat contents were significantly low in these muffins. Textural and sensory analysis also supported the M3 due to softer texture and significantly high color, appearance, flavor, and overall acceptability scores. From the results of this study, it could be concluded that a 15% replacement of shortenings with LRP could be considered as optimum for developing good quality baked muffins.