Development of a Date Confectionery: Part 2. Relating Instrumental Texture to Sensory Evaluation

Abstract

Successful commercialization of a date confectionery requires development on a sound technological basis. In Part I of this series, a relationship was established between the ingredients of a formulation, and the instrumental texture of the final product. In the present communication, we go a step further by developing a correlation between textural attributes, and the corresponding sensory parameters, as judged by trained panelists. In doing so, confections were made using table and processing dates and subjected to a “two-bite” texture profile analysis, thus recording a series of useful attributes. Taste panelists were trained to identify the corresponding sensory parameters thus constructing a scoring card as part of a quantitative descriptive analysis. Results demonstrated that instrumental texture can be “handshaken” to sensory evaluation to provide an avenue of developing and controlling the quality of a date confectionery made with affordable raw materials.

Keywords:

• Texture
• Sensory analysis
• Date confectionery
• Dendrogram

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Support from the project: “Improvement of date palm production and dates quality in the Sultanate of Oman” (SR/AGR/PLNT/01/01) is acknowledged. I. Al-Bulushi, I. Al-Marhoobi, and L. Al-Kharousi are thanked for technical support.