120 Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 91 (2): 300–4, February 2021/Article Development of Quality Protein Maize based breakfast cereal OM PRAKASH 1 , S K JHA 2 *, S G RUDRA 2 , G K JHA 2 , J P SINHA 2 and FIROZ HOSSAIN 2 ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India Received: 15 September 2020; Accepted: 20 October 2020 ABSTRACT The study was carried out at ICAR-IARI, New Delhi during 2012–16 to evaluate the effect of extrusion parameters namely, barrel temperature (100–140°C), screw speed (300-500 rpm) and feed moisture addition (6–18% wb) on quality of QPM (Var. HQPM1) based expanded extruded product. The optimum extrusion processing condition (9.75% feed moisture addition, 125°C temperature and 461 rpm screw speed) was established for QPM. At this extrusion condition, the effect of addition of finger millet and carrot powder on quality of QPM based extruded product was determined. Addition of up to 20% finger millet was found optimum for retaining acceptable colour in the extrudate. Addition of carrot powder to QPM-finger millet base imparted reddish colour to the extruded product and also led to decrease in expansion ratio and increase in bulk density. Colour (“a-value”) increased with increase in carrot powder in the sample, indicating increase in redness of the product. Based on physical appearance of the sample, as well as expansion ratio and a-value, addition of 10% carrot powder was considered optimum. A breakfast cereal was thus developed through extrusion processing at optimum conditions using ingredients composition of 72% maize (QPM and normal maize), 18% finger millet and 10% carrot powder. The final product obtained had 9.6% protein, 1.5% fat, 3.4% fibre, 2 mg/100g β-carotene, 3 mg/100g iron and 122 mg/100g calcium. Amino acids (especially tryptophan and lysine) were higher in quality protein maize based product than normal maize based product. Keywords: Breakfast cereal, Carrot, Extrusion, Finger millet, QPM The volume of breakfast cereal segment consumed in India was about 351.8 Mkg in 2018, which is expected to rise to 374.4 Mkg in 2023 (Statistica, 2019). Extrusion processing is being used to produce a number of breakfast cereals. Food extrusion, a high temperature short time cooking process has been reported for developing numerous food products and their advantages (Jha and Prasad 1997, Jha and Prasad 2003, Chikkanna et al. 2015, Tiwari and Jha 2016, Jalgaonkar and Jha 2016, Kaukab et al. 2017, Krishnakumar et al. 2017, Tiwari and Jha 2017a, Tiwari and Jha 2017b, Faisal et al. 2017, Arunkumar et al. 2018, Faisal et al. 2018, Jalgaonkar et al. 2018a, Jalgaonkar et al. 2018b, Jalgaonkar et al. 2018c, Jalgaonkar et al. 2019). It is considered as the most efficient food processing technique which is continuous and also ensures uniform quality product. Corn, commonly known as Maize, is third most grown staple crop in India. Quality Protein Maize (QPM) falls under specialty corns and has catered use in food processing industry. It has been reported that QPM contains nearly twice more usable protein than other maize (Hossain Present address: 1 ICAR-CAZRI, Jodhpur; 2 ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. *Corresponding author e-mail: skj_ageg@iari.res.in. et al. 2018). Genetic improvement in HQPM series hybrids led to increase the provitamin A content from 2.14-2.48 μg/g to 10.58 μg/g (Zunjare et al. 2018). Finger millet also known as ragi is popular millet in India. It has a unique property of slow digestion. It contains adequate amount of thiamine, iron and calcium with a rich source of dietary fibres (Gopalan et al. 2004). Carrots, the most important source of dietary carotenoids contain the highest amount of β-carotene of the common fruits and vegetables (Desobry et al. 1998). β-carotene constitutes 60–80% of the carotenoids in carrots, followed by α-carotene (10-40%), lutein (1–5%), and other minor carotenoids (0.1–1.0%) (Chen et al. 1995). The objective of the study was to determine the effect of extrusion process variables on quality of breakfast cereal based on QPM. The effects of addition of finger millet in QPM and carrot powder in QPM-finger millet on quality of extrudates were determined. MATERIALS AND METHODS Maize, finger millet and carrot were used as ingredients for product development. Maize (HQPM1 and normal maize) and carrot were obtained from the farm of Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi during 2012-16. Finger millet (GPU 28) was obtained from GKVK, Bangalore. The raw ingredients obtained from the farm were cleaned thoroughly. Maize and finger millet was ground using laboratory hammer mill (Sanco, Delhi). Carrot was pulped and dried