Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

Sapota, also known as chickoo, is one of the leading fruit crops cultivated in India. It is widely appreciated for its sweet flavour, which resembles a blend of brown sugar and beetroot, making it a popular choice across all age groups, particularly in Asia. Nutritionally, sapota is rich in bioactive compounds such as sugars, proteins, ascorbic acid, phenolics, carotenoids, and the glycoside sapotinine, along with essential minerals including iron, copper, zinc, calcium, and potassium. Cheese, a nutritious and adaptable dairy product derived from coagulated and concentrated milk, is available in numerous textures, flavours, forms, and varieties. Beyond its nutritional value, cheese serves as an effective medium for delivering probiotics, offering advantages over fermented milks and yogurts. This is primarily due to its ability to buffer the acidic environment of the stomach and maintain a relatively higher pH, thereby supporting the survival of probiotics in the gastrointestinal tract. The present study aimed to formulate cheese integrated with sapota pulp and to evaluate its quality. Cheeses were prepared by incorporating various concentrations of sapota pulp along with other ingredients, and the most acceptable formulation was selected based on sensory evaluation. Plain cheese served as the control sample. Sensory analysis revealed that the cheese containing 10% sapota pulp achieved the highest overall acceptability score of 8.91. Subsequently, both the control and the 10% sapota pulp cheese were analysed for their physico-chemical characteristics. The sapota-enriched cheese showed the following composition: moisture content of 53%, energy value of 292 kcal, carbohydrates at 17.67 g per 100 g, protein at 21.98 g per 100 g, fat content of 13.98 g per 100 g, pH of 5.0, and titratable acidity of 0.52. In comparison, the control cheese exhibited 48% moisture, 283 kcal energy, 12.35 g of carbohydrates per 100 g, 20.19 g per 100 g of protein, 15.67 g per 100 g of fat, a pH of 6.56, and a titratable acidity of 0.78.