Production and Some Quality Parameters of Sugar Beet Sweets (Pestil and Köme)

Pestil and köme are popular Turkish sweets produced from different fruit juices/concentrates/pekmez, honey, different nuts and flour/starch. These products are very appetizing and have high nutritional value. Pestil and köme are produced especially from mulberry and grapes for thousands of years by traditional methods. In the recent times, they have started to be produced from beet pekmez after the start of the sugar beet cultivation in Turkey. In the study, these products were prepared from sugar beet and some physical (moisture, crude fiber, protein, total sugar, invert sugar, raw oil and thickness), chemical (HMF, TPC, TFC, FRAP and aflatoxin) and sensory properties of the sweets were investigated. Total phenolic contents and total antioxidant capacities of samples were analyzed by Folin-Ciocalteu’s method and FRAP, respectively. Aflatoxin analyses were determined with HPLC-FLD, and phenolic compositions of products were quantified with RP-HPLC-UV-Vis. Our results revealed that pestil and köme produced were having different properties ranged from 14.42 to 17.31% for moisture, 0.98–1.62% for crude fiber, 4.98–6.91% for protein, 22.08–25.64% for total sugar, 14.79–16.15% for invert sugar and the thickness, raw oil, HMF ranged from 0.92 to 1.12 mm, 10.35–14.34% and 15.24–22.37 mg/kg, respectively. The results indicated that the quality of sweets produced from sugar beet was as high as those produced from mulberry or grapes. Additionally, using sugar beet as raw material in pestil and köme production would be a good alternative source of income for farmers around the world.