3.1. Sensory evaluation of mixed fruit leather samples
The result of the sensory evaluation of the mixed fruit leather prepared using three different fruits (banana, pineapple and apple) are shown in Table 3. The result showed that the average score for appearance of sample 314 (60% banana: 20% pineapple: 20% apple) as 7.35 while sample 443 (20% banana: 40% pineapple: 40% apple) and sample 819 (40% banana: 40% pineapple: 20% apple) recorded 7.00. From the statistical analysis conducted, though there was slight variation in the appearance of the samples, there was no significant differences (p 4 0.05) among meaning that the appearance of all the samples were liked moderately by the panelists. The average texture score of the mixed fruit leather samples were 7.15 for sample 443 (20% banana: 40% pineapple : 40% apple) and sample 819 (40% banana : 40% pineapple : 20% apple) while there was slight difference in sample 314 (60% banana: 20% pineapple: 20% apple) which recorded 7.10, though there was no significant difference at (p 4 0.05) among the samples in their textures. It is worth noting that the texture of fruit leathers can be evaluated in several ways. The human mouth is more complex at evaluating the texture as opposed to a penetrometer which might measure just one aspect of texture (Huang and Hsieh, 2005; Pomeranz and Meloan, 2000).