Development and Nutritional Evaluation of Soaked Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)-Based Chocolate Ice Cream

Chocolate ice cream containing soaked chickpea was developed as a dairy-based composite dessert and evaluated using five 100-g formulations (T1–T5). The chickpea quantity increased from 10 to 50 g while milk decreased from 46 to 6 g; cream (30 g), sugar (10 g), cocoa powder (2 g), carboxymethyl cellulose (1 g), and vanilla essence (1 g) remained constant. Chickpea was soaked for 8–12 h, incorporated into a milk-based slurry, heated at 80–85 °C for 30 min, chilled, combined with whipped cream, and frozen. Thirty panellists evaluated colour, taste, flavour, appearance, and overall acceptability using a 9-point hedonic scale. T3 (30 g chickpea and 26 g milk) had the highest reported mean scores (8.60, 8.40, 8.90, 8.50, and 8.60, respectively). Reported proximate values for T3 were moisture 60.22%, ash 1.08%, fat 9.02%, protein 5.86%, and carbohydrate 23.82%. Calculated overrun was 40.0%. Drip-off increased from 2.0% at 20 min to 63.5% at 90 min under the stated melting-test conditions. The results support the preliminary feasibility and sensory preference of T3 among the tested formulations. Because no chickpea-free comparator or treatment-level chemical analyses were included, improved nutritional value relative to conventional ice cream was not established.