The effect of sugar substitution with natural honey on some physicochemical, sensory and microbial properties of milk-based dessert

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the possibility of the replacing sugar with honey in the formulation of dairy dessert. Therefore, honey with the concentration of 0 (control), 25, 50, 75, 100% was added based on the weight of sucrose in the control formulation of the dairy dessert. The results showed that with increasing the concentration of honey in the formulation of dairy dessert, pH, dry matter, texture hardness were significantly (P≤0.05) decreased and acidity and syneresis increased. The results of color test showed that by increasing the concentration of honey in the formulation, the brightness index (L*) decreased and redness index (a*) and yellowing index (b*) increased. By increasing the concentration of honey in the formulation of dessert, the counting of microorganisms decreased and the content of phenolic and antioxidant compounds increased. The sensory evaluation of treatments showed that by adding honey to the treatments, the color score, appearance and overall acceptance did not have a significant difference with the control sample, but a slight score of texture due to the moisture content of honey was reduced and the flavor and taste score increased, which these changes were not statistically significant. Since the highest total acceptance score belonged to the 50% sugar replacement with honey, so the mentioned treatment is considered as the superior treatment in terms of sensory properties.