DEVELOPMENT AND SENSORY ANALYSIS OF CUPCAKES WITHOUT ADDED SUGAR

The use of added sugar in exacerbated quantities has become increasingly common through processed products, causing a number of diseases. In order to improve the quality of food, people have sought to replace processed foods with healthier foods that bring some benefits to their diet. One of the possible healthy choices is to replace refined cereal flours with passion fruit and eggplant flours, ensuring the full use of the food and a high content of fiber, as well as being effective in controlling cholesterol. Therefore, the objective of the study is to develop and sensorially evaluate healthy cupcakes, without added sugar and with the addition of fiber-rich flours. The population consisted of 52 participants, randomly chosen amongst students, attendees and staff from Veiga de Almeida University, in Rio de Janeiro. For the preparation of the cupcakes the sugar was replaced by dates and the flour was made by a combination of 50% of wheat flour and 50% of the alternative flour (either passion fruit or eggplant). Each volunteer received two samples coded with four random digits, one referring to the passion fruit cupcake and the other to the eggplant cupcake. Sensory analysis was performed using the seven-point hedonic scale, where: 1= disliked a lot and 7= liked a lot, the attributes evaluated were: color, aroma, taste, texture, appearance and sweetness. As a result of the analysis, it was observed higher acceptance levels for the sample made of passion fruit flour. The frequency obtained for the “liked a lot” grade was higher than 33% while the frequency for “disliked a lot” was lower than 2% for all evaluated attributes of both samples. Given the analysis, there was a wide acceptance of the alternative cupcakes among all aspects, with purchase possibility greater than 85% among the general population.