Avaliação das características de qualidade de doces de leite comerciais

Abstract

The “doce de leite” is an important food produced and marketed mainly in Argentina and Brazil. Despite being produced in large volume and widely used as food ingredients, has no uniformity. The objective of this study was to evaluate the acceptance of six brands of “doce de leite” sold in the city of Lavras / MG and identify the attributes that influence the quality of “doce de leite”. Were performed to ana lyze color, texture, water activity (Aw) a nd sensory. T he results obta ined showed a wide va ria tion in color, textu re and wa ter activity between the brands of “doce de leite” evaluated. In relation to sensory analysis, through internal preference mapping three-way, it was observed that the marks A, B and F were the most preferred brands and the D and E the least preferred. The external preference ma pping, ca n be seen tha t the higher ha rdness and buds presented by the sample and D presented higher brightness for the sample E were the attributes responsible for the rejection of these bra nds. T herefore, it wa s observed tha t the textu re a nd color a re importa nt attributes in choosing the product, as consumers preferred the darker samples, softer and less sticky. Therefore, the resu lts of this stu dy can be applied by the da iry indu stry to develop and rebuild their formulations of “doce de leite” to better meet consumer demands.