Carotenoid pigments composition of Calendula flower and its potential uses as antioxidant and natural colorant in manufacturing of hard candy.

The composition profile of carotenoid pigment compounds of Calendula flower were identified by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and HPLC analy-sis it was found the these compounds were -carotene, creptoxanthin, lutein, flavoxanthin, leute-oxanthin, violaxanthin and zeaxanthin. The main carotenoids were -carotene, lutein and flovox-athin. The suitable carrier matrix for calendula flower carotenoid pigments were lactose, followed by dextrin, wheat flour and glucose. Consequently, the higher stability of calendula carotenoid pig-ments as a colorant material was observed in alka-line pH at pH ranging from 7 to 10 and temperature ranging from 40 to 70oC. Meanwhile, the degrada-tion of calendula carotenoids did not exceed than 19.3% of total pigments after 180min at 100oC. On the other hand, the antioxidant activity of calendula carotenoids was also studied by the rancimat test at 110oC on sunflower oil by adding 100 to 500 ppm calendula carotenoids. However, sunflower oil containing 200 to 500 ppm recorded or higher in-duction period than 200 ppm BHT. On the other hand, analysis of variance for sensory evaluation of prepared hard candy indicated that, hard candy containing 0.3 and 0.35% natural calendula carot-enoid color had received the highest scores for color, taste and overall acceptability compared with those prepared with 0.1 and 0.5% which recorded the lowest scores in all tested quality attributes.