Sensory Attributes and Preliminary Characterization of Milk Chocolate Bar Enriched with Cinnamon Essential Oil

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) is one of Indonesia's main commodities with annually increasing production. Chocolates are semi-solid suspensions of fine solid particles in a continuous fat phase. Primary chocolate categories are dark, milk, and white that differs in content of cocoa solid, milk fat, and cocoa butter. Milk chocolate bar is one of the most popular processed cocoa products in Indonesia. Widely cultivated in Indonesia, cinnamon is potential to be developed and is expected to add flavor and taste as well as enhance functional properties of milk chocolate, since it is well-known of its high antioxidant properties. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of cinnamon essential oil addition on the sensory attributes and physicochemical properties of milk chocolate bar. Three formulas of milk chocolate bar with an addition of cinnamon essential oil (0.1%, 0.3%, and 0.5%) were evaluated in this study. Panelists acceptance level decreased with increasing concentrations of cinnamon essential oil added, while moisture content and color analysis results did not show any significantly different for each formula, suggesting that milk chocolate bar with the addition of 0.1% of cinnamon essential oil had the highest level of acceptance and preferences for some of properties evaluated.