Physico-chemical exploration of Yam Flour (Dioscorea alata L.) as a raw material for processed cookies

Abstract Yam (Dioscorea alata L.) is a vine and twisted stems plant, which are easily wrapped around poles. Yam is a perennial tuber plant grown as an annual plant. Yam contains carbohydrates with low levels of sugar, amylose, minerals, fat, protein and fiber. This research objective was to explore the physico-chemical of white yam and purple yam as raw material for processed cakes. Fourteen accessions of yam, consisting of 7 accessions of white yam and 7 accessions of purple yam are obtained from a previous personal collection from community gardens in 2009 located in Banggai Islands Regency, Central Sulawesi Province. The determination of carbohydrate content was carried out by hydrolysis method, amylose content by iodometry, moisture content was measured by oven drying method, ash content was obtained by using dry ashes method, fat content measured using Soxhlet method and crude fiber content using Gravimetric method. The results show that purple yam physico-chemical exploration was higher on average than white yam, except for the protein in white yam (6.96%) slightly higher than purple yam (6.57%). Purple yam contains the highest water content (10.6%) while white yam has the lowest (7.42 %). The carbohydrate content of purple yam was 79.4% which was higher than white yam (73.41%). Furthermore, the level amylose content of purple yam was on average (9.05%) higher than white yam (6.93%). The total sugar content of purple yam was 0.75% higher than white yam (0.57%). The ash content was relatively the same between purple yam and white yam (2.35% and 2.25%, respectively). The fat content of purple yam is slightly higher than white yam (0.28% and 0.19%, respectively). In terms of protein content, purple yam was lower than white yam (6.57% and 6.96%, respectively). The crude fiber content of purple yam is 1.83% which is higher than white yam (1.11%).