Wood Apple (Feronia Limonia L.) Jelly: Development and Storage Studies

Among the number of underutilized fruits, wood apple (Feronia Limoia) is commonly known as poor man’s fruit in India. Utilization of wood apple is now expanding from poor man to common man due to its own medicinal and nutritional qualities. In spite of, native to India and great demand for medicinal purposes, the main problem in its increasing popularity of utilization is the lack of knowledge of processing technology. Processing technology of wood apple is, therefore, very important to popularize its utilization and to harvest its medicinal and nutritional values. Considering the above facts, wood apple was processed and two jelly samples (S1and S2), based on sweeteners i.e. sugar (artificial) and honey (natural), were developed. Developed samples were stored at refrigerated temperature for 90 days. The quality characteristics of jelly samples were evaluated at every 15th days of intervals in terms of total soluble solids (TSS), browning index, ascorbic acid, titratable acidity and pectin content. The sensory characteristics in terms of colour, flavour, taste and texture of jelly sample were also evaluated. The effects of storage, sweeteners and their interaction were found significant (p<0.05) on TSS, browning index and ascorbic acid. Except titratable acidity sweetener type has effected significantly (p<0.05) on all quality parameters. The pectin content of honey based wood apple jelly was found to be higher than sugar based jelly. This study is, therefore, very useful for processing and preservation of wood apple and can be basis to provide fundamental knowledge for commercial level design and production of wood apple products.

Keywords: Wood apple processing; natural sweetener, jelly, nutritional, sensory, quality.