The use of carob flour and stevia as sugar substitutes for cake production and enrichment with wheat germ

In this study, carob flour and stevia were used instead of sugar which is one of the main ingredients in the production of cakes. Also, wheat germ was used to enrich nutritional value of cake. Process variables were sugar (0-25 %), stevia concentration (0-2 %) and carob flour concentrations (0-30 %) in constant amount of wheat flour. From these variables, 20 different cakes were produced. The best cake formulation was decided from optimization and it was PC12 among these cakes. In optimization process, UI was set as zero. SSV, TSV, hardness, cohesiveness, gumminess, chewiness and resilience were minimum; springiness and volume were set as maximum. Also, maximum taste and general evaluation values were set parameters of sensory analysis. In order to increase nutritional values of the best cake decided, the wheat germ was replaced with wheat flour in different amounts (0-10 %) and 8 different cakes were produced. Among these cakes, the best cake formulation was decided from optimization of the parameters mentioned above. Enrichment with wheat germ led to increase some properties of cakes such as UI value got zero. TSV, cohesiveness and resilience were decreased. It led to increase springiness of cakes. Moreover, it affected the sensorial properties that both taste and general evaluation were increased. On the other hand, addition of wheat germ had negative effect on cakes such as increasing hardness, gumminess and chewiness. It decreased the volume of cakes. Besides all of them, the addition of wheat germ had no effect on SSV.