Proximate Composition and Microbiological Evaluation of Cookies Produced from Whole Wheat Flour, Unripe Plantain Flour (R. markham) and Moringa oleifera Leaf Powder

This study evaluated the use of some underutilized local crops, whole wheat (aestivum); unripe plantain (R. markham) and Moringa oliefera leaf powder to produce cookies and assessed the proximate composition and microbiological properties.

The blend ratio was generated through D- optimal mixture design using statistical software (Design Expert version 12). The three raw materials were individually processed using standard methods before combining them at different ratios that resulted to 16 samples used for the analysis.

The proximate analysis showed that sample WPM 9 (50% whole wheat flour; 30% unripe plantain flour; 20% Moringa oleifera leaf powder) had the highest moisture content, crude fibre content and protein content with 8.97a±0.00, 7.26a±0.25 and 10.57a±0.02 respectively and differed significantly (P = 0.05) from other samples. Sample WPM 15 had the highest fat content with 26.53a±0.25 while sample WFC (whole wheat cookie) had the highest carbohydrate content with 63.32a±0.02 and is significantly different (P =0.05) from other samples The total bacteria, fungal and coliform load of cookies ranged from 1.00 to 8.11 x 105 cfu/g, 0.00 to 7.00 x 105 cfu/g and 0.00 to 1.63 x 105 cfu/g respectively.

This study revealed that cookies produced from composite flours of whole wheat, unripe plantain flour (R.markham) and Moringa oleifera leaf powder can compete favorably with cookies produced from wheat flour only as the latter has low nutritional contents. However, there is the need to fortify the product in other to increase the nutritional composition of the cookies.