# Sensory Acceptance and Characterisation of Turmeric- and Black-Pepper-Enriched Ice Cream
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Consumer Acceptance of Turmeric-Flavoured Ice Cream  
#### 3.2.1 Sensory Acceptability  
The results of the acceptability test of the turmeric- and black-pepper-flavoured ice cream are shown in Table 3.  
As expected, the addition of turmeric powder significantly (\(p<0.05\)) affected the overall liking of ice cream and evaluated sensory attributes, as confirmed by Pearson's correlation test (Table S2). All formulations of flavoured ice cream tended to present lower sensory scores than control formulations regarding overall acceptance and appearance,mouthfeel, taste, and aroma. Concerning the scoopability score, the fortified samples did not differ significantly (\(p>0.05\)) from the standard ice cream. The decreased score for flavour in turmeric-enriched samples is probably due to the content of ketonic sesquiterpenes turmerones, which gives a slightly bitter and distinctive taste and aroma to the product [62; 63; 64]. Standard milk ice cream formulation (C) as well as ice cream formulations with the addition of 0.5% turmeric powder, with and without the presence of black pepper (T0, and T0p, respectively) received the highest scores for all evaluated attributes, above 4.0 (\"like slightly\"), and for overall liking, about 7.0 (\"moderately like\"), indicating an acceptance region. More than 80% of tested consumers liked these three ice creams (Figure S2). Samples with higher turmeric proportion (T1, T2, T1p, and T2p) received significantly lower (\(p<0.05\)) appearance, mouthfeel, taste, aroma, and overall liking scores compared to the control. Regardless, the samples T1 and T1p (1% of turmeric) were still acceptable to consumers with a mean rating higher than 6.0 (\"like slightly\"). These samples were rated as acceptable by more than 70% of participants (Figure S2). For many of the respondents (33% and 44%, respectively), samples with 2% added turmeric (T2 and T2p) were not acceptable, with mean grades for overall liking around 5.0 (\"neither like nor dislike\") and below 5.0 (\"dislike\"), respectively. This agrees with the results of studies by other authors [13; 14; 65] where turmeric powder was added to soft ice cream. They concluded that the optimal concentration of turmeric in ice cream was below 0.5%, although the overall results show that a higher proportion of turmeric also had acceptable ratings. Contrary to expectations, black- pepper-enriched samples (T0p, T1p, and T2p) did not differ significantly (\(p>0.05\)) in hedonic impressions from samples without black pepper (T0, T1 and T2), with the identical proportion of turmeric (6.94; 6.32; and 4.81 compared to 6.90; 6.32; and 5.31). Conversely, [PERSON] et al. [15] and [PERSON] et al. [16] concluded that the addition of black pepper in ice cream significantly (\(p<0.05\)) decreased the rating for aroma, flavour, and overall liking. However, they added a higher level of black pepper in a mixture with cinnamon, which could significantly affect overall liking [66]. Our results may indicate that black pepper in a proportion of 0.02% does not adversely affect the acceptability of turmeric-flavoured ice cream. Analysis of the results of consumer liking of ice cream based on the values of Pearson's correlation coefficient confirmed a high correlation (\(p<0.05\)) between the addition of turmeric powder and liking scores, while no correlation was found between the addition of black pepper and the sensory acceptance of ice cream (Table S2). Instrumental colour parameters, overrun, hardness, fat destabilisation index, and rheological parameters for the same samples were also tested and reported in our previous study [67]. A high positive correlation was observed between appearance scores and instrumental measured lightness and hue (0.922, and 0.918, respectively), and a negative