Production and quality evaluation of cake from wheat and red banana flour blends

Abstract

Cakes are convenient food products prepared from flour basically wheat and other principal ingredients and often baked. This study investigated the quality of cake produced from flour blends of wheat and red banana. Cakes were produced from eight formulations of flour blends of wheat and red banana at 10-80% ratios. Cakes from 100% wheat flour served as the control. The flour blends were analysed for functional properties while the cakes were subjected to proximate, physical and sensory evaluation. Results of the functional properties of the flour blends significantly (p<0.05) increased with increased proportion of banana flour in all the parameters evaluated. The same trend was observed in the proximate composition of the cakes in the ash, fibre and carbohydrate contents. Amongst the physical properties (weight, height, volume) of the cakes evaluated the weights were significantly (p<0.05) higher in the flour blends than the control sample (100% wheat flour). The sensory evaluation showed high scores of preference and acceptance in cakes containing up to 30% banana flour and were comparable to the control (100% wheat) in all the parameters analysed. The study revealed that cake produced from wheat/banana flour blends possesses good nutrient quality comparable to the control (100% wheat flour).