ABSTRACT:
Jackfruit is a dicotyledonous compound fruit of the jack tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) which belongs to the family moraceae grow in many of the tropical countries of South East Asia but it is particularly abundant in India and Bangladesh. Jackfruit is being valued by the processors to make best use of the heaps of the fruit that glut the market during harvesting seasons. The present investigation on preparation of jackfruit halwa was carried out in the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar. The experiment was conducted in a Completely Randomized Design with four formulations and five replications with variations in jaggery concentration (T1-90 %, T2-80%, T3-70 % and T4-60%). The effect of the processing on the nutritional quality and sensory quality, storage life and cost economics was also calculated in this study. The sensory evaluation was carried out monthly for a period of six months during storage. Results revealed that, in the present study, halwa formulated with 60% of jaggery (T4) considered as the best treatment with high TSS of 76.96%, ascorbic acid of 12.03 mg/100g and calcium content of 30.43 mg/100g with a shelf life of four months. T4 secured maximum sensory scores when compared to other formulations. Jaggery improves the taste and quality of the halwa. Benefit cost ratio of jackfruit halwa production was estimated as 1.73. It is highly favourable to take this value addition activity and therefore, this processing can be recommended for commercial exploitation.