Now-a-days peoples are health conscious and are looking forward to have products that carry functional and therapeutic values. Aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis miller) is such a plant that has as many as 200 different types of moleculesof health importance. Due to this, it has been used since ancient time for treating various types of disorders. The Aloe vera contains 1.0-1.5 per cent TS out of which, polysaccharides occupy 55 per cent, sugars 17 per cent, minerals 16 per cent, proteins 7 per cent, lipids 4 per cent and phenolic compounds 1per cent on dry basis. It also contains many vitamins A, C and E. Vitamin B1 (thiamine), niacin, Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamins B12 (cyanocobalamin), choline and folic acid including the important antioxidant. Health benefits of Aloe vera include wound healing, halts the cancer tumors, prevents kidney stones, lowers high cholesterol, reduces high blood pressure, stabilizes blood sugarand ends constipation. These days researchers are also concentrating to utilize Aloe vera as an ingredient in dairy and food formulations. Aloe vera gel or juice are used to incorporate in different dairy products like flavoured milk, ice cream, Dahi, yoghurt, Lassi and also food products like RTS and edible coatings etc.

Vacuum impregnation of sugar syrup into subbaric fried Gulabjamun was evaluated as a technological approach to prepare a product of most acceptable quality. Sugar syrup concentrations (40, 50 and 60°Brix) in combination with process time (2, 4 and 6 min) were analyzed for their effect on product quality in terms of its overall acceptability, expansion ratio, hardness, juiciness and sugar content. The effect of the process conditions on the five listed responses during the vacuum impregnation process was evaluated using response surface methodology and modelled using a second order polynomial equation. The optimum combination was obtained as soaking in a syrup of 55°Brix for 5 min and was experimentally validated for its real time adequacy. The experimental values of the quality parameters thus obtained were found to be in close agreement with the predicted values.

Gulabjamun, a popular Indian dairy sweet, is characterised with a brown crust and a soft, slightly spongy core with a uniform granular texture and a pleasant cooked flavour. Sub-baric processing is a novel technology which uses low temperature, low pressure and minimal exposure to oxygen which ultimately improves the quality parameters of fried foods. An attempt was made to compare conventional and sub-baric processed Gulabjamun in terms of its sensory, physical, chemical and microbial attributes. The processing conditions for frying were 118°C/5min/80kPa vacuum and 140°C/8min (under atmospheric pressure) for sub-baric frying and conventional frying, respectively. The soaking conditions were 60°Brix at 30°C for 5min for sub-baric soaking and 63°Brix/60°C/4 h for conventional soaking. The sub-baric frying of Gulabjamun resulted in reduced oil and moisture content in the final product. Microbial enumeration also indicated a lower count in sub-baric fried product when compared to conventionally fried Gulabjamun. The colour of both samples was comparable while the textural properties were found to be better for sub-baric processed product. Sensory score for overall acceptability based on 9 point hedonic scale were 8.2 and 7.14 for sub-baric processed and conventional product, respectively. Apart from these advantages, sub-baric processing recorded significantly less processing time than the conventional method.