Investigation on the Physicochemical and Sensorial Characteristics of Sponge Cake Containing Pumpkin Powder and Basil Seed Gum

Pumpkin is a good source of carotene, water-soluble vitamins and amino acids. Pumpkin powder is used because of its high nutritional value, highly desirable flavor, sweetness and appropriate color to improve the quality of bakery products and all types of cakes. In this study, basil seed gum (Ocimum basilicum) was used to improve the characteristics of cake containing pumpkin. So, firstly, the cake batter containing 10 % pumpkin containing different percentages of basil seed gum (at four levels 0, 25, 0, 5, and 75%) was prepared and their viscosity was measured. Then the cakes were cooked and their physicochemical properties including weight, ash, moisture, volume, density, crumb color and sensory characteristics were measured. Prepared cakes batter was a non-Newtonian fluid and shear-dependent and time-dependent type. With increasing basil seed gum percentage in cake formulation, the viscosity of batter increased (P<0.05). With increasing the basil seed gum from 0 to 0.75 %, cakes batters viscosity at shear rate of 30 s -1 ware increased from 11.7 to 22.5 Pa.s (P<0.05). The moisture content and volume of cakes were increased with increasing gum percentage (P<0.05). With increasing basil gum brightness of cakes increased due to increasing volume, in addition decreased yellowing of the samples (P<0.05). The L*, a* and b* indexes for sample containing 0.75 % gum were 87.48, 0.612 and 51.89, respectively. According to the sensory evaluation results, pumpkin cake containing 0.75 % basil seed gum had the highest total acceptance score. Pumpkin cake containing 0.75% basil seed gum significantly had more acceptability than other samples (P<0.05).