# Quality Improvement of Green Saba Banana Flour Steamed Cake
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Cake Analysis
#### 3.3.2 Texture Profile Analysis  
Apart from visual quality, the texture of the cake is another critical characteristic that may influence consumer acceptability. The hardness, cohesiveness, springiness and chewiness of the cakes were determined (Table 4). As expected, those cakes with a less expanded volume (control, O0P10, O0P15 and O7P15) (Figure S1) recorded higher hardness than the standard (\(p<0.05\)). The highly compact stacking of starch particles in these samples required higher external force to cause the structural damage. Even though addition of SPI was able to increase the specific volume in O0P10 and O0P15 (Figure 2), it did not improve the hardness of the cakes (\(p<0.05\)); rather, the hardness of the cake increased with the increasing level of SPI in these two samples which may be attributed to the high water binding capacity of SPI that reduced the free water and hence the cake softness [29]. On the other hand, the hardness of the sample supplemented with Ovalette alone (O35P0 and O7P0) showed an insignificant difference from the standard (\(p>0.05\)). Results obtained also indicate that Ovalette inclusion softened the banana flour cakes added with SPI such as O35P10, O35P15 and O7P10. The softening effect of Ovalette was credited to the formation of amylose-emulsifier complex that reduced the recrystallization of starch molecules after cooking and upon cooling [19]. These complex structures prevent further physical changes in dissolved amylose and reducing starch retrogradation [18]. The extremely high hardness of O7P15 could be attributed to the highest solid content and relatively low specific volume (dense structure). The results obtained indicating that gluten is the main factor granting the typical cohesiveness, springiness and chewiness of the cake. Cohesivity of gluten is known for providing necessary structuring functionalities in bakery products. In the absence of gluten, these textural properties were totally diminished (\(p<0.05\)) as shown in the textural parameters of the control. Cohesiveness represents the ability of a material to stick to itself; thus, it is an indication of how well a product withstands a second deformation relative to its resistance under the first deformation [48]. It also refers to the rate at which food disintegrates under mechanical action, or as the resistance of food to traction [29]. Increasing the level of SPI and Ovalette was found to further reduce the cohesiveness of the GSBF cakes (\(p<0.05\)). High springiness values are related to high chewing quality, whereas low springiness reflects the tendency to crumble upon external forces [49; 50; 51]. Comparatively, this textural parameter seemed to be least influenced by SPI and Ovalette where almost all the cake formulations showed similar springiness to the control (\(p>0.05\)). Chewiness is defined as the energy required to masticate a solid food product [52]. Without Ovalette, the chewiness of O0P10 and O0P15 were insignificantly different to the control, but other cake samples supplemented with both Ovalette and SPI required much lower