Research Article
Joseph Adubofuor, Michael Amoa
Abstract
The fruit pulp of ripe pawpaw is usually consumed fresh in slices, in chunks as dessert fruit and it can be processed and used in a variety of products such as jams, fruit juices and ice cream. The properties of partially-dried ripe pawpaw pulp incorporated into wheat flour for the preparation of Rock Buns and Cakes was investigated. Pawpaw was peeled, blended, drained to remove water and solar dried for four hours to obtain a semi-solid form of texture of the pulp. The nutritional composition and physicochemical properties of the partially-dried ripe pawpaw pulp were determined as well as two physical properties of the Rock buns and cakes. The wheat flour was substituted by the partially dried pawpaw pulp at levels of 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40%. Analyses indicated the protein, fat and ash contents of the pulp to be 0.20±0.00, 0.40±0.00 and 0.20±0.02% respectively, while the carbohydrate and energy contents were 32.77±0.02% and 135.468 kcal/100 g respectively. The highest mineral content was potassium with a value of 537 mg/100 g and the least was iron with a mineral content of 1.03 mg/100 g. The titratable acidities of 0.11% were based on malic acid and citric acid, which are the main organic acids in pawpaw. With increase in the levels of substitution, the weights and heights of Rock buns decreased significantly (p < 0.05) and the increase in substitution also led to a significant decrease in the height of the cake samples. However no specific trend was observed in the way the weights of the cake samples increased or decreased.