In this study, the effect of soaking condition towards Mung bean Vigna radiata water absorption and Mung bean extracted crude protein were investigated. This research was conducted to fulfill the fundamental study on the development of Mung bean beverage. The factorial design was employed to investigate the effect of soaking condition by 3 factors, namely concentration of NaHCO3 (0.0%, 0.5% and 1.0%), temperature (30oC, 60oC and 90oC) and time (30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes), under 19 runs and 2 responses: water absorption (%) and crude protein (%). The data were then statistically analysed using Design Expert 7.0 software and results were generated under Anova table (p < 0.05), interaction model graph and cube view, to predict the optimum soaking condition which best suits the required responses. It was found that the combination of 90 minutes soaking time, 30oC of soaking temperature and 1.0% NaHCO3 concentration yielded the highest percentage of water absorption and crude protein.
Dabai is one of the indigenous seasonal fruits that can be found in Sarawak. The nutrient-rich dabai has tremendous application in food product development including formulating dabai into cake mixture as its nutrients affect the quality of the cake produced. The aim of this study is to determine the physicochemical properties, microbiological and sensory characteristics of dabai cake. Physicochemical properties including proximate analyses as well as macro mineral analyses were conducted according to the standard methods. From the analyses, the moisture content ranges from 29.94±0.40% to 33.49±0.50%, ash content 1.44±0.12% to 1.49±0.02%, protein content 7.15±0.38% to 9.28±0.29%, and fat content 14.67±0.76% to 18.83±1.04%. In addition, it is also found that the amount of mineral including Na, K, Ca, Mg, Fe and Zn increased proportionally with dabai content in the formulation. Furthermore, the microbial loads of dabai cake were either none or too few to count throughout the duration of 35 days stored in chiller within 4°C to 9°C. In terms of general acceptability, the cake was that incorporated with 10 g of dabai is the most preferred with the mean score of 6.90. From this study, it is found that the production of dabai cake contains acceptable amount of nutrients with no significant differences of sensory attributes and can be stored up to 35 days in chiller.