Development of a functional food (pan bread) using amla fruit powder.

The amla fruit powders were analyzed for ascorbic acid, sugars, pectin, total phenolics (TPC), and total antioxidant activities (TEAC). Fresh amla was found to have 6644.305 mg/100 g ascorbic acid with sun-dried, oven-dried and freeze-dried having 748.427 mg/100 g, 641.364 mg/100 g, 791.233 mg/100 g, respectively. There were no significant differences for the TPC values which ranged from 113.1 for oven-dried (OD), 128.7 for sun-dried (SD), 161.2 mg for freeze-dried (FD) and 1410.5 GAE/g for fresh amla pulp (FA). The TEAC values ranged from 6.6 for OD, 6.8 for FD, 7.6 for SD and 116.4 mM/g for FA. The FD amla fruit powder had the highest total sugars (36.94%, db). The specific loaf volume of bread improved significantly (from 3.54 to 3.79 cc/g) as the level of SD or OD amla powder addition was raised to 0.25% but then decreased at higher level of addition (3.41 cc/g). However, in case of FD amla powder, the bread volume increased up to the addition level of 0.50% (4.09) then decreased slightly (3.95 cc/g) but was still significantly higher the SD and OD amla powders. Similarly, the TPC (from 0.32 to 1.16 mg GAE/g, db), TEAC (0.06-0.14 mM/g, db) and vitamin C (3.80-31.98 mg/100 g, db) contents also improved significantly as the level of amla powders were increased to 1%. The supplemented breads were well-accepted by the consumers. It can be concluded that amla supplemented pan bread with its superior nutritional and sensory qualities can be a possibility to improve consumer nutrition.