SENSORY EVALUATION OF CHOCOLATE AND CUPULATE CEREAL PANNED CONFECTIONERY

Fruit processing can generate a large amount of solid waste, which is often considered a disposal problem for the industry. By-products, on the other hand, still have interesting characteristics for the food industry. Cupuassu pulp processing have the seeds as by-products. These seeds can be processed in the same way as cocoa beans to produce a product like chocolate: cupulate. Chocolate is often used to produce pan coated confectionery. The aim of the present work was to sensory compare chocolate and cupulate as coverage in pan coated extruded cereal. The confectionery products were produced in a dragee machine. The expanded cereal cores received successive layers of chocolate or cupulate until they had their initial mass increased by approximately five times. In addition to the layers of chocolate needed for thickening, layers of a syrup responsible for imparting brightness to the product were applied. The products were sensory evaluated by 120 consumers. Acceptance tests were carried out to evaluate the acceptance of the final product, through a structured hedonic scale of 9 points (extremely disliked (1); very much disliked (2), moderately disliked (3), slightly disliked (4), nor liked or disliked (5), slightly liked (6), moderately liked (7), very much liked (8), extremely liked (9)). Also, “Check all that apply” method was applied, and consumers checked all the attributes that were related to the sample. Both products were well evaluated by the consumers and attributes as pleasant aftertaste, chocolate flavor, pleasant aroma, sweet taste, firm to bite, shiny and melts in mouth positively contributed to the product evaluation. Chocolate flavor attribute was checked by 50% of the consumers for cupulate sample, showing a potential similarity between chocolate and cupulate. Cupulate can be potential coverage to confectionery pan coated products.