Augmenting Physical Characters and Functional Benefits of Egg Fruit (Pouteria campheciana L.) Muffins with Glycemic Load Prediction.

Pouteria fruit is rich in carbohydrates and thus has great potential to substitute refined wheat flour in bakery industries. This paper enumerates the effect of different substitution levels of Pouteria pulp and powder on muffin properties and their glycemic load. The desirable leavening, baking loss, appealing crust and crumb color was achieved with 5% powder incorporation in muffins apart from control. High moisture content of 25% pulp incorporated muffins substantiated the highest baking loss. Among the different formulations tried, 15% powder incorporation gave appreciably soft and other desirable textural characters. The carotene content was significantly high in Pouteria powder muffins (1.58 to 31.70 mg/100 g) comparing the control. Likewise, there was significant increase in the biochemical components of muffins due to the proportionate increase in the incorporation of Pouteria pulp and powder in the muffin formulations. With the inclusion of 15% Pouteria powder, the most desirable human wellness character, i.e., glycemic load was brought down from high (33.85) to medium (19.88) range in these egg fruit incorporated muffins. Despite receiving the highest sensory score (15% powder muffin), a common unfavorable feedback across all formulations of Pouteria muffins was the sticky crust. These muffins could be stored for 7 days without spoilage under ambient conditions with distinct change in their crust colour. Thus, this underexploited fruit could act as an excellent source of ingredient for bakery products to enhance the nutritional security.