Development of jelly from mulberry (Morus alba L.) and its quality evaluation during storage

Mulberry (Morus alba L.) is one of the underutilized fruit which is a rich source of antioxidants like phenols, besides its appealing taste and strong aroma. Investigations were conducted to develop jelly and its quality evaluation during storage is reported here. Different combinations of juice (40, 45, 50 and 55%) and sugar (45 and 50%) were tried to standardize proper combination for jelly. The jelly prepared by following the best selected recipe was packed in glass and PET jars and stored for six months under ambient and refrigerated temperature conditions. Jelly could be safely stored for a period of six months under both the conditions without much change in various quality characteristics. Different quality characteristics like TSS (°B), reducing sugars (%), total sugars (%) and pH of jelly increased from 66.00 to 66.56, 48.21 to 51.42, 63.08 to 63.46, 3.56 to 3.62 while other chemical characteristics like titratable acidity (%), ascorbic acid (mg/100 g), anthocyanins (mg/100 g), total phenols (mg/100 g), pectin (%) decreased from 0.75 to 0.67, 5.83 to 4.11, 9.00 to 6.71, 72.18 to 69.13, 1.06 to 0.88 and sensory characteristics scores of colour, texture, taste, aroma, overall acceptability score from 7.50 to 7.02, 7.83 to 7.27, 8.19 to 7.92, 8.00 to 7.55, 7.90 to 7.40, respectively during refrigerated storage. However the changes in the quality characteristics of jelly were slower in refrigerated storage conditions as compared to ambient conditions during six months of storage period the quality of the product was retained better in glass jars than PET jars under refrigerated storage condition.