Development and Quality Evaluation of Wheat Cookies Enriched with Bambara Groundnut Protein Isolate alone or in Combination with Ripe Banana Mash

Abstract Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) and huge postharvest losses of agricultural produce are some of the major challenges militating against food and nutrition security in most parts of the world, particularly in developing countries with increasing population. The incorporation of nutritionally-rich underutilized local crops into popularly consumed foods such as cookies could be employed to address challenges of PEM. Hence, the feasibility of producing cookies from wheat flour, Bambara groundnut protein isolate (BPI) and ripe banana mash (100:0:0, 90:10:0, 85:10:5, 80:10:10, 75:10:15, 70:10:20, 65:10:25) was investigated. The cookies were subjected to physical, proximate, amino acid, mineral and sensory analyses. The physical properties (hardness, height, weight, diameter and spread ratio) of the cookies substituted with BPI alone or in combination with banana mash decreased (p ˂ 0.05). Among the proximate compositions of the cookies, only the protein (11.49 - 14.10 g/100g) which was increasing and carbohydrate (64.43 - 68.36%) which was decreasing with inclusion of BPI and increasing substitution of ripe banana mash appeared to be significant (p ˂ 0.05). However, moisture, ash, fat and fibre also showed increasing trends. The cookies containing 25% ripe banana mash had the highest calcium, potassium and magnesium but also, the lowest sodium and iron. Amino acids results showed protein of cookies with 25% ripe banana mash to be of highest quality. This study revealed that nutritious and acceptable cookies could be produced from wheat, BPI and ripe banana mash with 90:10:0 being the most preferred and 65:10:25 and 75:10:15 being the recommended among the ripe banana mash-containing cookies.