Baking Kinetics and Characteristics of Cake Mixture Formulated with Mealworm Powder

Abstract Yellow mealworm (Tenebrio Molitor) was reported containing 24.3 to 27.6% protein content. However, public acceptance is still relatively low as many tend to reject it as a source of food. Hence, studies were carried out to incorporate dried mealworm powder into a standard butter cake mixture formulation. Yellow mealworms were dried using an air ventilated oven at 80°C. The dried mealworms were then ground into powder and added in a standard butter cake formulation (0%, 5% and 10%). Baking was carried out in a convective oven at 140°C for 30 minutes. Moisture content, colour, texture and protein content were analysed. The effective diffusivity values of the cake samples varied from 4.46 × 10-11 m2/s to 4.72 × 10-11 m2/s. Significant observations were recorded for the L * and b * values obtained among the cake samples. The firmness of the cake increased while the springiness decreased as addition of the mealworm powder was increased. An increase in protein content was observed from 5.99% to 11.12% with the addition of mealworm powder in the cake formulation.