Fondant sweets enriched with beta-carotene

The purpose of research is to obtain fondant sweets enriched with β-carotene to increase the nutritional value of the final product. The study was carried out at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of the Confectionery Industry – a branch of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "FRC of Food Systems named after V.I. V.M. Gorbatov” RAS. The fondant mass "Orange" was chosen with the replacement of the artificial dye tartrazine (E102) in its formulation with β-carotene, followed by an organoleptic assessment of the resulting sweets and the achieved level of enrichment. Beta-carotene is not only a provitamin of vitamin A, but also has an independent biological activity, showing pronounced antioxidant properties. The source of β-carotene was the water-soluble drug Vetaron. The organoleptic assessment of fondant sweets was conducted in accordance with GOST 3897-90. The quantitative determination of β-carotene was carried out by the spectrophotometric method according to GOST EN 12823-2-2014. The Vetaron preparation was added at the rate of 3.5 and 8.0 mg β-carotene per 100 g of the product. The study resulted in fondant sweets enriched with β-carotene at the source (20 % of the recommended aver-age daily requirement per 100 kcal of the product) and high content (45 % of the recommended average daily requirement per 100 kcal of the product). An additional advantage of using β-carotene instead of tartrazine was obtaining a juicy orange color, reflecting the name of the fondant mass - "Orange". The study of the preservation of β-carotene in packaged glazed fondant sweets showed its stability during storage (air humidity 60–75 %; temperature 18–20 °С), losses after 90 days of storage did not exceed 5 %. This indicates the possibility of using β-carotene not only as a natural dye, but also for enrichment. The developed technology for producing fondant sweets allows us to recommend them as a preventive product.