Abstract:
The study was conducted to develop jam from passion fruits. The fruit extract, sugar, pectin and citric acid were the ingredients needed for the process. The quality of the jam is highly dependant on the choice of concentration of each ingredients. This study investigated the optimization of the ingredients using Response Surface Methodology within the following ratios: yellow passion fruit extract (500 g/kg), sugar (400–500 g/kg), pectin (2–6 g/kg) and citric acid (1–3 g/kg). The effect of ingredients on physico-chemical properties like pH, moisture, ash, titratable acidity, total soluble solids, vitamin C and consumer acceptability of the product were examined. A uniform precision type Box-Behnken design consisting of three variables in a three-level pattern with 17 runs (with five center points), was employed to optimize the ingredients. Mathematical model was used to optimize the levels of the factors for the highest possible acceptability, to produce yellow passion fruit jam. Results showed that the model fit was significant (p<0.05) for, appearance, flavor, taste, sweetness and even highly significant (p<0.01) for texture, color, and overall acceptability. Processing yellow passion fruit juice into jam resulted in a significant decrease in physico-chemical properties like vitamin c, pH and TA but a significant increase in TSS. Data obtained from RSM on yellow passion jam production were subjected to the analysis of variance (ANOVA) using a second-order polynomial equation. Sensory analysis for, appearance, color, flavor, sweetness, taste, texture and overall acceptability were performed. The optimum ingredient levels for the best sensory score were sugar 400 g/kg, pectin 5.24 g/kg and citric acid 1g/kg. Jam produced under the optimum conditions was subjected to sensory evaluation and the results were compared with the RSM predictions
