Abstract

Biscuits were produced from blends of plantain, sweet potato and malted sorghum flour. This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of varying the proportions of these flour mixtures on the taste and texture of the produced biscuits. Mixture response surface methodology was used to model the taste and texture of the biscuits with single, binary and ternary combinations of the three flours. The optimum taste and texture of the biscuit were targeted and the responses optimizer of Minitab software (version 14.0) was used to obtain the mixture that gave these targets. Result showed that the taste and texture of biscuits samples differed significantly (p < 0.05). Sweet potato flour had the highest positive influence on the taste, while malted sorghum mostly improved the texture. The regression coefficients showed that the mixture of plantain and malted sorghum flour decreased both the taste and the texture of the biscuit, while the blend of  sweet potato and malted sorghum flour had negative influence on the texture of the biscuit. The mixture of the three flours improved both the taste and the texture of the biscuit more than their single or binary combinations. Biscuit of acceptable taste and texture could be produced from the blend of these three flours.

Key words: Plantain flour, sweet potato flour, malted sorghum flour, biscuit, taste, texture.