# Sensory Acceptance and Characterisation of Turmeric- and Black-Pepper-Enriched Ice Cream
## 1 Introduction  
Ice cream is a very popular frozen dessert mostly consisting of milk, sweeteners, hydrocolloids and emulsifiers, flavouring, and colouring agents. More precisely, it is a complex medium of dispersed air, fat globules, ice crystals, and a continuous aqueous phase that contains dissolved lactose and mineral salts, and suspended polysaccharides and proteins. From a nutritional point of view, ice cream is rich in valuable milk proteins, lactose, and milk fat. Therefore, its consumption provides a great number of calories, but it is poor in natural antioxidants, phenols, and pigments [1; 2; 3]. The reason for its popularity lies in its nutritional value and refreshing perception during consumption [4; 5; 6; 7; 8]. According to Research and Markets [9], the average consumption of ice cream across Europe is 6.20 L per/capita each year, while the average American eats about 10 kg of ice cream per year [10]. Thus, ice cream is an excellent carrier for the distribution of functional ingredients to human organisms [3]. Furthermore, it is of interest to explore the modification of ice cream ingredients and the addition of various additives in the ice cream formulation in order to highlight their health benefits and improve sensory properties. In terms of ice cream fortification, different ingredients and bioactive compounds were used [11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16]. In this study, turmeric and black pepper were used as ice cream fortifications. Turmeric (_Curcum longa_) is a herbaceous evergreen plant belonging to the _Zingingingingence_ (ginger) family, commonly used in India, China, and Southeast Asia as a spice, food preservative, and colouring agent [17]. Due to the presence of polyphenol curcumin(diferuoylmethane), turmeric exhibits several health properties, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, hepatotoxicity, antidiabetic, antibacterial, and anticarcinogenic properties [17; 18; 19]. Unfortunately, curcumin is poorly absorbed due to its rapid metabolism in the liver and intestinal wall, which limits its medicinal efficiency. To overcome these issues, numerous methods have been recently described [20; 21]. Black pepper (_Piper nigrum_) is a flowering vine extracted from the core of a pepper plant and is used as a spice all around the world. Black pepper belongs to the family _Piperaceae_, genus _Piper_ and species _Piper nigrum_. This spice with its characteristic aroma and spicy taste is rich in alkaloids (piperine), terpen, lignans, and phenylpropanoids. Based on this, it possesses great biological activities, such as antioxidant and radical-scavenging properties, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic properties, as well as hepatoprotective activity [22; 23]. Besides its functional properties, it is reported that piperine from black pepper enhances the bioavailability of curcumin by 2000% [24]. The incorporation of turmeric and black pepper in ice cream formulation could potentially affect its sensory attributes and that could have an effect on consumer preferences of the ice cream. To better understand consumer preferences, there are several methods for conducting sensory analysis. Hedonic scales, especially nine-point hedonic scales, are used to evaluate the degree of liking on a scale. Another often-used scale is the just-about-right (JAR) scale. This test is used in order to measure if an attribute is present in a product at a level that is too high, too low, or if it is \"just about right\" [25]. The CATA (check-all-that-apply) method is utilised for the sensory description of food through a list of descriptors from which participants should check all that describe the tested product [26]. Some studies have assessed the potential use of turmeric powder in dairy products, such as paneer [27], ghee [28], yogurt [29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34], and milk [35]. Despite this, to the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of literature on the use of turmeric powder for ice cream production, and the consumer perception of turmeric-flavoured ice cream is still unexplained.