ABSTRACT

This work investigated the proximate analysis and sensory evaluation of cakes and biscuits produced from water yam flour. The healthy raw tuber water yam was brought from Ndoro market in Umuahia, Abia State. It was washed, peeled, sliced into chips, soaked into salt for 1 hour, sun-dry, mill, and sieve into flour. The water yam flour was divided into two equal parts. The sample 103 was added margarine, sugar, egg (beaten), milk flavor, baking powder and vanilla flavor while the other part which is sample 101 was added margarine, sugar, salt and milk flavor to improve its taste, flavor, colour, texture, and appearance. It was compared with the wheat flour (cake and biscuit) being (sample 104 and 102). Sensory evaluation was conducted using the 9 point hedonic scale. The sensory analysis was conducted using 20 semitrained panelists. From the findings, most of the panelists did not like the appearance, texture, taste and colour of the water yam and biscuit. The proximate composition, the result shows that water yam contains higher moisture content, and ash has the lowest score. The use of water yam flour, cake and biscuit with or without other ingredient such as wheat flour produce cakes and biscuits with a different taste, flavor, texture, appearance, colour and sweetness. The result of this finding also revealed that there are vitamins and mineral in water yam also observed that it contains electrolytes and phyto-nutrients. The result of the research showed that water yam (Dioscorea alata) could be used to produce high quality and acceptable composite flour which can be useful in the production of cakes and biscuits.