ENRICHMENT OF FRUIT LEATHERS WITH BERRY PRESS CAKE POWDER INCREASE PRODUCT FUNCTIONALITY

Fruit leathers are tasty, chewy, dehydrated fruit products which are eaten as snack or dessert. Dried berry press cake powders could be a promising ingredient for enhancing nutritional value of such products. The aim of this work was to enrich apple and black currant fruit leather with dried blackcurrant and raspberry press cake powders, and to evaluate the effect of the press cake additives on the content of total phenolics, total anthocyanins, antioxidant activity and textural properties of the product (fruit leathers). In this study, fruit leather made of apple and black currant puree was enriched with two different berry press cake powders (1) freeze-dried raspberry press cake powder (dry-matter content 97.3.) (2) conventionally dried black currant press cake powder (dry-matter content 95.4%). The contents of total phenolics, total anthocyanins, antioxidant activity, colour and textural properties of the test samples was evaluated. The content of phenolic compounds in raspberry and black currant press cake powders was 28.5 and 25.4 mg g(-1) respectively. The content of anthocyanins in black currant press cake powder was more than 19-fold higher than in raspberry press cake powder. The addition of berry press cake powder reduced hardness of the fruit leathers and samples with black currant press cake powder was two times softer than the control. Raspberry press cake additive increased the lightness (L* = 24.0) and the redness (a* = 3.4), whereas black currant press cake powder reduced the lightness (L* = 22.5) and the redness (a* = 1.5) of the product. The content of anthocyanins in the fruit leathers enriched with black currant press cake powder was significantly higher than in control sample (116.4 and 74.1 mg 100 g(-1), respectively). Berry press cake powder also increased antioxidant capacity of the fruit leathers. The results of the study can be useful for health-conscious food producers and consumers.