Acceptability of Indian Almond Terminalia catappa as Bitter Chocolate

Indian almond in the Philippines is one of the edible fruits in the country that has been ignored due to its unappreciated health benefits. In this study, the researchers aimed to utilize Indian almonds as Bitter Chocolate. This research used the Quasi-experimental design, which is the most widely used research approach, encompassing pre-experiments making use of the control of comparison group. This is to determine the sensory acceptability of each treatment. The study was conducted in one of the universities in Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines with 30 respondents using random sampling technique, utilizing structured survey questionnaires. The data gathered was used to determine the acceptability of Indian almond as bitter chocolate in terms of sensory attributes and its level of acceptability. These serve the purpose of knowing the level of acceptability of Indian almond in terms of Appearance, Aroma, Taste, and Texture. Result showed that there is a significant difference between the native chocolate and Indian almond as bitter chocolate. In terms of appearance, the treatment 3 is more acceptable to be the closest appearance to the chocolate, treatment 2 and 3 also seen a significant difference in terms of taste/flavor, and lastly, all treatments have seen no significant difference in terms of aroma, our findings shows that Indian almond can be an alternative to native chocolate. The results of the microbial analysis are within acceptable limits. There is no significant difference in the level of acceptability of the chocolate. This result means that the respondents similarly liked the bitter chocolate.