Development of Thai-taste maoberry (Antidesma bunius (L.) Spreng.) vegan sorbet from fruit of different maturities with added inulin: Physicochemical and antioxidant properties

Maoberry (Antidesma bunius (L.) Spreng.) is a tropical fruit popularly consumed with Thai-style chili sugar flakes containing sugar, salt, and chili to enhance its flavour, and reduce its sour and bitter taste. The present work aimed to develop a Thai-taste maoberry vegan sorbet using maoberries at different stages of maturity with added inulin, and to evaluate its physicochemical properties, total phenolic and total flavonoid contents, and antioxidant capacities. Results showed that the three different stages of maoberry maturity caused significant changes on pH, total soluble solids, mixture viscosity, overrun, and firmness of the sorbets. The antioxidant activities assessed using ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging, 3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS), radical cation decolourisation, and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assays indicated similar trends. Black maoberry sorbet exhibited total flavonoid contents and FRAP values almost twice those of red maoberry sorbet. However, adding inulin significantly increased the melting rate of the product (p < 0.05), but improved the mixture viscosity and overrun, which are important attributes of sorbets.