Nutritional, Shelf-Life, and Sensory Evaluation of Cucumis callosus Based Optimized Syrup

Cucumis callosus or "Choti kachri" is feral species of Cucurbitaceae family grown commonly in the semi-arid zones. The current study aimed to optimize and develop a syrup by utilizing C. callosus. For optimization of various combinations of C. callosus (CC) and Malus domestica (MD), various treatments were prepared namely T1 (100:00), T2 (75:25), T3 (50:50), T4 (00:100). The developed syrups were analyzed for nutritional and sensory analysis for a storage period of three months. The maximum and minimum range of different blends and storage period for various parameters were reported as TSS (^oBx) (65.06 ± 0.23 to 67.17 ± 0.25), pH (4.67 ± 0.17 to 5.02 ± 0.65), acidity (%citric acid) (0.61 ± 0.02 to 0.98 ± 0.11), reducing sugars (%) (35.98 ± 0.12 to 44.12 ± 0.03), total sugars (%) (57.12 ± 0.03 to 65.51 ± 0.07), and non-reducing sugars (%) (14.88 ± 0.19 to 26.65 ± 0.11). All the blends varied non- significantly in terms of TSS, pH and acidity while significant (p ≥ 0.05) difference was noted in sugars when blended with 75:25 ratio of CC: MD. The data with respect to storage study reveals that the TSS, PH and acidity varied non-significantly while reducing sugars increased significantly. However, total, and non-reducing sugars decreased significantly with the increase of storage period. The prepared blends were subjected for sensory evaluation using 9-point hedonic scale for assessing color, consistency, taste, aroma, and overall acceptability with noted values as 8.0 ± 0.54 to 7.0 ± 0.44, 7.2 ± 0.54 to 8.0 ± 0.70, 7.0 ± 0.44 to 8.0 ± 0.70, 7.2 ± 0.44 to 8.0 ± 0.70, and 7.2 ± 0.44 to 8.0 ± 0.83. The study indicated that C. callosus is an acceptable source for development of syrup.