Preference mapping: relating acceptance of "creaminess" to a descriptive sensory map of a semi-solid

Creaminess is used by consumers to describe the texture of many food produc ts. The overall objective of this study was to investigate the underlying s ensations to the acceptance of textural creaminess. Eight puddings varying in thickness, mouthcoating, rate of melt and smoothness were developed by a ltering the amount and type of starch, amount of milk-fat and amount of sod ium salts. Puddings were evaluated by descriptive analysis for appearance, texture and flavor characteristics. Concurrently, consumers evaluated the p uddings for "liking of creamy texture". Sensory descriptive data were subje cted to principal component analysis, resulting in a multidimensional produ ct space that was related to the consumer acceptance data using the AUTOFIT selection strategy. More than 90% of consumer responses were selected and validated by AUTOFIT. A dimension related to thickness seemed important to consumer acceptance of creamy texture. In general, hedonic scores for cream y texture were higher for samples that were smoother and had more dairy fla vor, although, hedonic scores for creamy texture varied considerably on dim ensions related to dairy flavor and smoothness. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science L td. All rights reserved.