From tradition to convenience: using sausage technology to bring Malaysianbanana-based dessert to the masses

Bananas, widely popular as a fruit, hold significant importance in Malaysian cuisine, particularly in traditional desserts such as pengat, cekodok, lempeng, apam, lepat, and bingka. Recognizing the immense potential of these banana-based desserts in the global market, there exists a strong desire to enhance their commercial value. The focus is on transforming these traditional desserts into ready-to-eat options, adeptly catering to the convenience and preferences of consumers worldwide. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a ready-to-eat banana-based traditional dessert named bingka pisang using sausage technology. This innovative approach seeks to produce a product that can be easily consumed without compromising the essence of the original desserts. The results indicated that incorporating a higher quantity of bananas in the formulation resulted in notable changes in the dessert's characteristics. Desserts with a higher banana content exhibited a softer texture, higher moisture content, and a darker colour. Sensory evaluation revealed that the sample containing a higher banana content received a more favourable reception compared to the others. The ready-to-eat banana sausage with 80% banana content displayed the most favourable overall properties and was well accepted by the sensory panellists. Furthermore, its proximate composition was deemed acceptable. Based on these findings, a process design was proposed to produce 104.2 kg or 1736 pieces per batch of ready-to-eat banana sausage from 100 kg of fresh bananas, targeting small-scale industries.