Formulation and evaluation of dry dessert mix containing sweetener combinations using mixture response methodology

Reduced calorie foods are an important area for product development. Foods formulated for diabetics and/or weight reduction tend to replace bulk caloric sweeteners with high intensity sweeteners. A mixture experimental design was used to model the acceptability of a low calorie dessert mix sweetened with single, binary and tertiary combinations of saccharin, cyclamate and stevioside. The design included constraints to permit sweetener addition according to the limits of food laws. The dessert mixture had a 37% caloric reduction when compared to the sucrose sweetened pudding, and texture equivalent to commercial products was reproduced with the addition of 0.01 g/100 ml carrageenan. The most acceptable combination of the sweeteners tested was saccharin: cyclamate (0.755:0.245), but other combinations could be used to obtain an acceptable product taking cost of the ingredients into consideration. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.