Determination of Starch Content in Green Maize Cobs and its Product Development

Kinley Wangmo, Dechen Tshering, Sonam Lhamo & Thinley Wangdi

ABSTRACT

Maize is an important crop cultivated throughout the country. Although it is nutritious containing nutrients like carbohydrates, fat, protein, some vitamins and minerals, it is often considered as poor people’s food. Maize in Bhutan is generally used for human consumption in the form of grits (kharang), roasted flattened form (tengma) and quite often as cattle feed. In light of the limited option for use of maize as food and the stigma attached to its consumption, there is a need for maize product diversification into more attractive and acceptable food forms.

One potential use of maize could be starch extraction and utilization of the extracted starch in baked products. This study was conducted to determine the possibility of extracting and recovering starch, and in developing products from extracted starch. Results from this study indicate that the starch yield ranges from 208.6 g in milk stage, 316.9 g in dough stage, 507.6 g in dent stage and 540 g in physiological maturity stage from fresh 3 kg of maize grain weight. A significant difference in the percentage of starch recovered at different stages of maize grain development was observed. The starch recovered increased with the maturity of the maize grain and varied from 6.9 % at milk stage to 10 % at dough stage, 16 % at dent stage, and 17.9 % at physiological maturity stage. Four different products – cookies, fried cookies, cracker and pancake were developed from the extracted starch. Sensory evaluation results for the four products showed that overall acceptability percentage for cracker, pancake, cookies and fried cookies were 100 %, 90 %, 84 % and 28 % respectively. Based on average scores from the sensory evaluation, cracker was the most liked product and fried cookies the least.  The results from the study could be beneficial in maize product development and diversification.

Key words: Reproductive stages, starch recovery, products, sensory evaluations

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