Design of a baked good using food ingredients recovered from agro-industrial by-products of fruits

In the last few years, healthy foods have increasingly attracted consumers' interest, leading to an increase in sales worldwide. Using by-products from the agroindustry to produce healthy/fortified foods is a promising approach since peels and seeds of fruits have significant amounts of bioactive compounds. In this sense, this work evaluated the possibility to add fractions recovered from residues of orange, lime, and peach palm in a food product. First, the proximate, ultimate, and chemical composition of the residues was determined to identify the main substances that could be valorized. Then, the selected high-value-added molecules extracted from fruit residues were used to formulate a high-fiber brownie. A Box-Behnken experimental design was used to determine if fat replacement, flour replacement, and the addition of encapsulated extracts influenced the food product's color, texture, and humidity which were determined from the analysis of the texture profile of the samples. It was possible to identify with the help of an electronic tongue a formulation with similar properties to a commercial brownie but with enhanced functional properties due to the novel ingredients added, which could potentially improve consumers' health.