Proximate and sensory evaluation of cake from composite flour of rice and sweet potatoes

Wheat flour is the main ingredient for production of the bakery products such as cake, biscuits, meat pie and other products. These products are imported by countries like Nigerian with unfavourable climate for growing wheat. Nigeria has spent huge amount of income in importing wheat flour, this has paced burden on the foreign exchange reserve of the economy. As result of high cost of imported wheat, this has led to the development and use of composite fours for production of biscuits, bread and pastry products. Rice and sweet potatoes were processed into flour were blended in the ratio of 100:0, 0:100, 75:25, 50:50 and 25:75. They were coded as RFF, SPF, SPR25, SPR50 and SPR75 respectively. 100% wheat (sample WFF) served as control. Proximate composition and sensory attributes of cake were evaluated.  The result revealed that proximate composition ranged as follows: moisture25.20 -29.90%, protein 4.21 to 8.44%, fat: 10.76 -17.89%, ash: 0.99 -2.61%, fibre content 0.76 t0 1.76 and carbohydrates: 47.85 – 52.59% . Cake made from 100% wheat flour did not differ (p<0.05) significantly from those made from 75% sweet potatoes: 25% rice flour in most sensory attributes. Nutritional and acceptable cake can produced from blends rice and sweet potatoes.