During the month of Ramadan, desserts are among the most popular and favored food choices for those observing fasting. Many dessert options are commonly sold during Ramadan, and one of them is gelato. Who doesn’t know gelato? It’s an Italian-style ice cream often served as a dessert. Unlike regular ice cream, gelato has a denser and smoother texture. The basic ingredients of gelato are milk, cream, and sugar, with additional ingredients such as fruits, flavorings, and coloring to make it visually appealing. Gelato coloring is typically derived from the color of fruits or other food colorings.
This has motivated Geoffrey Gunawan Putra Pandu, a sixth-semester student at the Sages Academy, to creatively develop food coloring from natural ingredients, specifically from coconut husk. Gunawan chose coconut husk as the material for his research because he wanted to utilize something that is typically discarded and transform it into something safe for consumption. According to Daniel Pandu Mau, his supervisor for the creative menu course, students were given the freedom to innovate and create a product that can be applied and safe for consumption within a semester’s time. During this semester, Gunawan successfully turned coconut husk into a natural food coloring for gelato with vanilla flavor.
The process of making the coloring from coconut husk is quite time-consuming. The husk must first be dried and burned until it turns black, then washed thoroughly, and finally ground until it becomes a fine powder. The end result of this grinding process is organic charcoal from the coconut husk, which is black in color. According to Ir. Ivy Dian Puspitasari Prabowo, S.TP., M.P., a nutrition professor at Sages Academy, charcoal is a safe ingredient for food mixtures because it is made from natural materials. Additionally, charcoal can also be used for detoxification, although the dosage should be carefully monitored, as excessive amounts may interfere with nutrient absorption in the body, she explained. The unique color produced from this burning process can be used to color various foods without affecting their taste.
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