Indian J Dairy Sci 72(3): 241-248 241 RESEARCH ARTICLE Sensory characterization of pinni - a milk cereal based sweet using quantitative descriptive analysis and principal component analysis Ravinder Singh, Writhdhama Prasad and Kaushik Khamrui Ravinder Singh, Writhdhama Prasad and Kaushik Khamrui () Dairy Technology Division, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal – 132 001, Haryana, India E mail: kkhamrui@gmail.com Phone: 0184 2259242, Fax: 0184 2250042 Received: 18 December 2018 / Accepted: 12 February 2019 / Published online: 22 June 2019 Indian Dairy Association (India) 2019 © Abstract: Pinni is a popular traditional milk-cereal based sweet of northern states of India viz., Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. Market samples were collected and were evaluated for various quality attributes. Quantitative Descriptive Analysis revealed significant difference (p<0.05) in sensorial, physico-chemical, textural attributes of pinni among the market samples. Principal Component Analysis identified key six components comprising of shape, crumbliness, cooked flavour, colour, firmness, oxidized flavour, gumminess, chewiness, cohesiveness, surface appearance and coating and moisture absorption, which governed 78.66% of the variation in the sensory scores of pinni. Hence, these attributes may be given prime importance while developing technology for industrial scale production of pinni. Keywords: Quantitative descriptive analysis, Principal component analysis, Pinni, Sensory evaluation Introduction Pinni is a traditional dessert popular in northern part of Indian subcontinent. It is prepared by roasting cereal flours mainly wheat, gram, black lentil flour with added khoa (desiccated milk) and sugar (Talwar and Brar, 2015). Pinni is characterized by light brown colour with grainy texture and pleasant flavour coupled with excellent nutritive value. Pinni is usually prepared during winter and consumed as a dense source of energy, especially by lactating mothers, besides being enjoyed by young ones and adults. Traditionally, pinni is produced at home, but with urbanization and industrialization, it is now manufactured at small scale by food industries in India. Popularity of this product is increasing day by day and sporadic information is available regarding chemical composition and manufacturing process, but practically nothing is known about the sensorial attributes of this delicacy (Talwar and Brar, 2015). Probably due to the absence of any regulatory standard, variations in ingredients quality, recipe and storage temperature of the final product the composition of pinni available in the market widely (Talwar and Brar, 2015). Also, information on the desirable sensory characteristics of this delicacy is also not properly documented. As sensory quality is the driving force for consumer acceptance hence characterization of sensory attributes of the product is crucial to develop a product that meets consumer expectation (Desai et al. 2013). Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA) approach has been recognized as a tool for measurement and optimization of sensory attributes of various food and dairy products (Stone and Sidel, 1998). In this technique, the panel members are trained to measure the specific quality attributes of the product to obtain quantitative product description which can be analyzed statistically. QDA has been successfully used as technique for sensory evaluation of food products such as UHT milk (Chapman et al. 2001), chocolate milk (Thompson et al. 2004), soy milk (Keast and Lau, 2006), whey and soy proteins (Drake et al. 2007), fermented food products (Ghosh and Chattopadhyay, 2010), yoghurt (Desai et al. 2013) doda burfi (Chawla et al. 2014) and cham–cham (Puri et al. 2015). Principal component analysis (PCA) is a multivariate statistical analytical technique applied to sensory data to reduce the set of dependent variables (attributes) to a smaller set of underlying variables (called factors) based on patterns of correlation among the original variables (Lawless and Heymann, 1998). QDA and PCA studies on doda burfi revealed that two principal https://doi.org/10.33785/IJDS.2019.v72i03.002