Quality of milk and Physico-Chemical Properties of Khoa

Khoa, khoya, khowa or mawa is a traditional dairy product is widely used in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. Mawa means the product obtained from cow or buffalo or goat or sheep milk or milk solids or a combination thereof by rapid drying. The milk fat content shall not be less than 30 percent on dry weight basis of the finish products. It may contain citric acid not more than 0.1% by weight. It shall be free from added starch, added sugar and added colouring matter (FSSAI, 2011).  Khoa is a heat-desiccated Indian traditional milk product prepared by continuous heating of milk until the desired concentration of milk solids about 60–70% is achieved (Kumar et al. 2016). The Bureau of Indian Standards has provided legal standards for different types of Khoa like Pindi, Dhap and Danedar in terms of fat, total solids, ash, acidity, coliforms and yeast and mould counts (IS 1980). These varieties are used for making value added khoa based milk products like peda, burfi, kalakand, gulabjamun etc. (Choudhary 2015; Choudhary et al. 2017).