Formulation of functional crackers enriched with germinated lentil extract: A Response Surface Methodology Box-Behnken Design

Abstract

Legumes are suitable for producing functional food due to their rich phenolic content and antioxidant activity (AA). It is well known that germination is applied to enrich the nutritional value of legumes. In the past five years, there has been a rapid rise in the use of germination. One of the main issues about our knowledge of germination is a lack of supplementation to food. Consequently, the aim of our research was to broaden current knowledge of enhancement of a cracker with germinated lentil extract (GLE). We examined the nutritional, sensory and textural properties of cracker enriched with GLE. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) Box-Behnken Design (BBD) is applied to optimize conditions of ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) of germinated lentil (GL). The highest desirability was observed with an ultrasonic power of 20, a solid/solvent ratio of 1:10 g/ml, and water as solvent at an extraction time of 18 min. The GLE addition increased the total protein content (from 1.68 to 2.43%), total phenolic content (TPC) (from 0.78 to 3.33 mg GAE/g) and AA (from 0.34 to 0.84 μmol trolox/mg) of the crackers. Moreover, the addition of GLE increased a* value from 3.64 to 14.66 and the hardness of the samples. Sensory panel scored 5% enriched samples with the highest acceptability. Results show that GLE enriched crackers may be consumed as functional food without changing sensorial aspects.