Prebiotic and diet/light chocolate dairy dessert: Chemical composition, sensory profiling and relationship with consumer expectation

•Descriptive analysis determined the descriptor terms of chocolate dairy desserts.•Diet and light chocolate dairy desserts were produced with sucrose replacement.•Desserts present functional characteristics due to the addition of prebiotics.•Sucralose dessert presented similar sensory profile to the traditional one.

The preference for healthier and convenience products has led to a growing demand for functional and ready-to-eat foods that present a suitable sensory acceptance. This study aimed to identify the drivers of liking of chocolate dairy desserts. A consumer test with 120 people was performed. The sensory profiling was carried out by 14 trained assessors using quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA). In addition, the principal component analysis (PCA) identified two significant principal components that accounted for 73.49% of the variance in the sensory attribute data, and partial least squares (PLS) regression was used to identify the drivers of liking of chocolate dairy desserts. The results show that the most desired sensory properties of such products are sweetness, milk chocolate flavor, sweet aroma, and mouth fill, whereas bitterness and bitter aftertaste were considered undesirable. In this context, these attributes can be considered drivers of liking and disliking of chocolate dairy desserts and they should be taken into consideration by dairy processors at the development of new dairy products.