Physical, nutritional and organoleptic properties of muffins prepared with canistel fruit flour (Pouteria campechiana)

Canistel is an underutilized fruit available in Sri Lanka. It has potential nutritional value and various health benefits due to the presence of functional compounds in it. Therefore, muffins from canistel flour were prepared in various proportions together with wheat flour as a remedy for reducing gluten and minimising the wastage of nutritionally rich canistel fruit. In this study, the properties of muffins prepared with different ratios of wheat flour and canistel flour, such as 100/0, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, and 50/50%, were evaluated. AOAC and AACC standard methods were used to determine the physical and nutritional properties of developed muffins. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to perform a statistical analysis of the data. The nutritional factors such as the moisture, ash, protein, fat, fibre, carbohydrates, and energy were discovered to differ between 14.91 - 15.49%, 1.39 - 1.62%, 6.01 - 7.29%, 13.37 - 15.80%, 6.07 - 10.67%, 49.13 - 58.25% and 435.87 - 459.63 J/Kg, respectively. All physical and nutritional properties exhibited substantial variations (p<0.05) among treatments. According to the result obtained, the physical and nutritive features of treatment C (Tc), that is 70:30 wheat: canistel flour blend, were selected as the most effective muffin. Therefore, this undervalued canistel fruit could be utilized to prepare baked goods blended with wheat flour, perhaps contributing to gluten-free, healthy baked goods.