Rheological Modification of Donkwa (Ground Cake Snacks) Using Food Gel

Abstract

Donkwa is a common snack that is commonly taken in the northern part of Nigeria and it is prepared from roasted groundnut (peanut) mixed with roasted cereal (maize) flour and spiced with ginger and pepper, and sugar are added to taste. The mixture were pounded and moulded into balls that can be eaten without further processing. The need to optimize donkwa to meet the daily nutrient need of the malnourished were made by improvement of the textural and /or pasting properties of donkwa using food gels. The compositional effects of major ingredients on donkwa textural properties were also determined. Samples of groundnut, maize, and sorghum were obtained locally from Kure modern market, minna, Niger state. The groundnut were cleaned, sorted and roasted. The maize were cleaned, sorted and ground into powdered and sieved. The sorghum were cleaned, sorted and soaked in cleaned water for 24hours. The wet sorghum was milled to paste and 4litres of water were added to the paste and allowed to settled and sieved. The pastes were sun dried, and used as gelling agent (Binder). The roasted groundnut were mixed with the maize powder and milled to paste for the three ratio (G80-M20, G70-M30, G60-M40) with varied proportion of binder (food gel), 2%, 4%, and 6% respectively. These specified ratio of groundnut paste,(x1) maize powder(x2) and binder(x3) were mixed accordingly. The mixture were constituted differently into a number of experimental treatments with 0.000053g of Sugar, 0.0000025g of Salt, and 0.0000012g of pepper as ingredients proportion for each run. The mixture were allowed to cool and settle, and moulded into various shapes and sizes. A three variables three levels factorial design matrix (N=33) were used to analysed the sensory data. The results were subjected to data analysis using SPSS 16.0, 2010 version. Analysis of variance was used to check if there were significant differences between the treatments and Student-Newman-Keuls Multiple range test (SNK) was used to separate means that were significantly different. The results showed that out of the 27 experimental treatments, treatment 2 with 70% groundnut, 20% maize and 2% binder gave the highest qualities in terms of adhesiveness, firmness, chewiness, textural hardness and cohesiveness. Therefore, it was recommended as the best formulation for high quality donkwa preparation.