Nutritious Dehulled Sunflower Meal Based Muffins: Optimization, Quality Characteristics And Storage Stability

The present study was conducted to optimize the food materials such as Dehulled Sunflower Meal (DSM) and Refined Wheat Flour (RWF) in flour blend for the preparation of muffins and to evaluate the storage stability of DSM incorporated muffins for 15 days storage at ambient as well as low temperature (4o C). Different experimental combinations were planned using response surface methodology (central composite design) of Design Expert software considering 10 to 40 g DSM and 60 to 90 g RWF. Different levels of RWF and DSM significantly influenced the instrumental colour (L, a, b values), nutritional quality, textural profile analysis and sensory acceptability of muffins. The nutritional and baking quality such as crude protein, total mineral content, iron and calcium, weight loss and height of baked muffins increased with increasing quantity of DSM. Optimized level of RWF and DSM consisted of 63.46 and 36.54%, respectively in flour blend showing overall desirability as 0.831. This muffin sample provided 11.72% crude protein, 2.24% total minerals, 143 mg/100g calcium and 4.55 mg/100 g iron with an overall acceptability score of 7.9 and can be stored for 9 days with good sensory acceptability.