Development of Gluten-free Cookies from Fonio and Coconut Flour Blends

Abstract

The overdependence on refined wheat flour in food processing has called for a critical need to search for alternatives in snack production. Fonio is a nutritious, gluten free cereal with a low glycaemic index. Defatted coconut flour is low in calorie and rich in fibre. This work therefore, evaluated the quality of cookies produced from blend of fonio and coconut flour. Coconut meat was cut into smaller chunk, wet milled and sieved. The chaff obtained was oven dried and milled into flour. Cookies were produced from blend of fonio and coconut flour at different ratio (100:0, 90:10, 80:20, 20:80, 0:100%) and was analysed for proximate, physical, and sensory attributes. The data obtained was subjected to statistical analysis. The results showed that the proximate composition of flour samples ranged from 4.71 to 8.91%, 5.98 to 7.51%, 2.13 to 43.08%, 2.67 to 8.10, 0.30 to 0.37 and 29.05 to 78.30.54% for moisture, protein, fat, crude fibre, ash and carbohydrate, respectively. The physical properties of cookies for weight, thickness and spread ratio of the cookies ranged from 5.50 to 6.40 g, 0.70 to 0.77 cm, and 5.91 to 6.64, respectively. The judges rated cookies from 100% coconut as most preferred in terms of overall acceptability. Cookies of acceptable quality were produced from 80:20 composite flours of fonio and coconut flour. Fonio and coconut flour blends can be used in the production of cookies with improved nutritional and sensory qualities.