Study on the preparation and quality assessment of low-cost, milk-fortified, cassava-based cookies

The study on the preparation and quality assessment of low-cost, milk-fortified, cassava-based cookies was conducted to determine the organoleptic quality and to estimate the production cost of the developed cookies. The experiment was done at the Dairy Training and Research Institute, Animal Science, UPLB. Five formulations of cookies used had the ratio of wheat flour-cassava mixture namely: 100-0%, 75-25%, 50-50%, 25-75%, and 0-100%, for Treatments 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. All treatments contain similar level of fresh milk, except for Treatment 1. Sensory evaluation revealed that the color and appearance, body and texture, flavor and aroma were significantly different in all sources of variation except in application. Result further showed that treatment means had the same trend in all variables evaluated: Treatment 3 (50-50% mixture) revealed highly significant difference. In terms of general acceptability, all sources of variation were significantly different from each other in all treatments. Treatments 1 and 4 were not significantly different when subjected to further test, however, Treatment 3 was significantly different from other treatments. Chemical analysis in terms of moisture contents as expected showed that as moisture content increases, total solid decreases thereby decreasing the protein content of the product. Furthermore, substitution of cassava decreases the crude protein, but fortifying it with milk resulted to an increase in crude protein. Duncan's Multiple Range Rest (DMRT) revealed that Treatment 1 was significantly different from Treatment 3 and 4. Also, Treatment 2 was not significantly different from Treatment 3. In comparing Treatment (control) and 2, Treatment 2 was better since it has mean value than Treatment 1. Shelf-life was also observed. Six months showed no noticeable changes, besides Treatment 5 wherein in the fourth month of observation, oxidation was observed and also Treatment 4 where the texture deviated from the original. In terms of cost of production of formulated cookies, the study revealed that the production of cassava-based cookies was cheaper than producing wheat flour-based