Physicochemical and sensory properties of cracker made from lemongrass (Cymbopogon Citratus)

Lemongrass is one of the herbs that is important to human especially in cooking. The flavour and aroma give the food a good taste and scent to whose eating it. It is even widely used for cooking, oil diffusion and many more. However, people rarely use lemongrass as ingredient in baked product such as cracker. In rare cases, lemongrass can also lead to an allergic reaction. Thus, this study is aiming on conducting a food product which is incorporate lemongrass cracker by using the concentration of lemongrass powder of 0%,1%,2%,3% and 4%. The study had been observed on the determination of physical attributes, proximate analysis and analysis of sensory evaluation of the lemongrass cracker. Physical attributes like colour and texture were determined by using the equipment like colourimeter based on the CIELAB colour space and texture analyser that focused on the hardness and fracturability. Analysis of proximate that estimate the nutritional composition like protein, moisture, ash and fat had been done were determine by many machines like protein Kjedahl machine, conventional oven, muffle furnace, and fat Soxtec machine. 30 panelists were collected for sensory evaluation for testing the lemongrass cracker by online survey. ANOVA and SPSS were the software that had been used to analysed the answers from the panelist. For the result obtained, percentage of fat and ash of the lemongrass cracker were increased along with the increased amount of lemongrass powder in cracker followed by lightness value and texture attributes while value of yellowness, redness and percentage of protein and moisture were decreased. At the end of the study, 3% concentration of the lemongrass cracker was the favourable one by the panelist in the terms of its overall acceptance.