Mineral contents and physical, chemical, sensory properties of ice cream enriched with date fibre

Date samples of Amber cultivar straining from Medina region (Saudi Arabia) were analysed for their chemical compositions and physicochemical properties of date fibre in the present study. Fibre rich date pieces were found to contain 80.2 g/100 g total dietary fibre, 16.32 g water/g sample water-holding capacity while 9.50 g oil/g sample oil-holding capacity. It can be stated from these results that fibre content of date is a valuable dietary fibre source and used in food production as an ingredient. Effects of the addition of date fibres at different concentrations (1, 2, 3 and 4%) were investigated on the physical, chemical, sensory properties and mineral content of ice cream in the present study. It was found that elemental composition of ice cream samples was affected significantly by the addition of date fibre concentrations (p<0.05) and the rates of K, Mg and Zn especially increased in the samples depending on the content of date fibre while the content of Ca and P decreased. It was determined from the sensory results that ice cream sample containing date fibre in the rate of 1 and 2% received the highest score from panellists.