Comprehensive chocolate aroma characterization in beverages containing jackfruit seed flours and cocoa powder

Abstract

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) occurs abundantly in Brazil, but its seeds are often underutilized in food nutrition. Previously, we showed that roasted jackfruit seeds are an innovative source of chocolate aroma. In this study, we characterized the volatile content of experimental beverages containing jackfruit seed flours as compared to non-alkaline cocoa powder. The three key results of this study were that (i) the fermented jackfruit seed flour beverage (FJSBev) was similar to the non-alkaline cocoa powder beverage (CTRLBev); (ii) similar volatile groups (acids, alcohols, aldehydes, ester, furans, and pyrazines) were identified in the samples (FJSBev and CTRLBev); (iii) the beverages contained volatile compounds with a low threshold of cocoa attributes (butter, cocoa, coffee, floral, fruit, green, honey, mushroom, nut, and roasted). To conclude, the beverage formulation containing fermented jackfruit seeds had more volatile compounds and odor-active constituents than that with non-alkaline cocoa powder. Collectively, our data demonstrate that fermentation is critical to producing a chocolate aroma. Fermented jackfruit seed flours could be used as a partial or total additive to improve chocolate aroma in food formulations.