Physico-chemical characterization and fuzzy logic modeling of sensory evaluation for market Ghewar

Ghewar is a very popular traditional Indian sweet, commercially prepared during the festive seasons of “Rakshabandhan”, “Teej” and “Makar Sankranti”. To protect the traditional art of manufacturing and to make its presence worldwide physico-chemical and textural quality attributes were evaluated by collecting samples from the markets of Jodhpur, Ajmer, Sonepat and Jaipur cities. Similarly, the sensory scores of above market samples of Ghewar were analysed and ranked for their quality attributes with the help of fuzzy modeling. A team of eleven people familiar with product performed the sensory evaluation. Slight variations have been found in the method of manufacturing of product due to the local consumers’ preference. Statistical analysis (P≤0.05) showed significant variation among the market samples for moisture, protein, fat, total ash, reducing sugar, free fatty acids, peroxide value, firmness, weight, thickness, diameter of a single sweet, water activity, L*, a* and b*. Among the screened market samples, the products from Jodhpur city were ranked as the most preferred samples. The quality attributes which affected the acceptability of samples were found to be colour & appearance, body & texture, sweetness and flavour in descending order of their significance.