The apples (Golden Delicious) harvested at their optimum ripeness were obtained from the local market. The raw material was purchased from the local market and the multifloral honey was purchased from the local farm, Dr. YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, H.P and were used to conduct this study.

The soaking time for the pops and apple rings was initially optimized by selecting firm ripe fruit, followed by washing, peeling, and making pops and rings of different sizes. Apple pops (28.08 mm in diameter) and apple rings (0.5 cm thickness) were prepared and blanched for 30 seconds. Blanched apple pops and rings were then osmotically dehydrated in hypertonic solution (sugar and honey) at 70 ° Brix. Fruits of known weight were treated with different treatments. Osmosis was performed to optimize osmotic time in different time intervals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9h) in a ratio of 1: 3. Sizes that have osmosis have been standardized on the basis of the drying time. In addition, osmosic dried apple pops and rings were prepared, respectively.

Physico-chemical characteristics of fresh apples, osmo dried apple pops and rings were accomplished using standard analytical techniques (Ting and Rouseff, 1986; AOAC, 1996 and Ranganna, 2009). The total soluble solids (TSS) content of fresh and processed products was determined using a manual refractometer and sugars were estimated by the Lane and Eynon method as detailed earlier (Ranganna, 2009). Acidity was determined by titrating aliquots against 0.1 N NaOH to a pink end point using phenolphthalein as an indicator (Ranganna, 2009). Total phenols were extracted in 80% ethanol and calculated with the Folin-Ciocalteau reagent (AOAC, 1996). The antioxidant activity was analyzed by the free radical scavenging activity (Brand-William et al. 2005). The energy value of the developed products was measured in a bomb calorimeter (Toshiwal DT100 model), which is based on the principle that the amount of heat produced by burning the sample must be equal to the amount of heat absorbed by the whole (Kays and Barton, 2002). Furthermore, the non-enzymatic browning (NEB) was determined at 440 nm using 60% aqueous alcohol as a blank on the spectrometer (Spectronic-20).

Data obtained from the chemical characteristics of fresh and processed products were statistically analyzed following the Completely Random Design (CRD) detailed earlier (Cochran and Cox, 1992). The determinations were made in triplicate for each attribute.

Data on the physico-chemical characteristics of fresh apples are presented in Table 1. Length, breath, weight, specific gravity and firmness were observed as 65.80 ± 0.10mm, 68.66 ± 0.02mm, 124.07 ± 0.02g, 10.60 ± 0.20 and 10.26 ± 0.02 lb / inch² respectively. (Sharma et al. 2000; Sharma et al. 2006) reported similar results in the Golden Delicious and Parlin’s variety. Moisture content (83.90 ± 0.10 %), ash content (2.42 ± 0.02 %), titratable acidity (0.40 ± 0.01 %), total soluble solids (15.00 ± 1.53°B), reducing sugars (5.00 ± 0.50%), total sugars and non-reducing sugars of 8.33 ± 0.02 and 3.33 ± 0.01 per cent were found,respectively. The results were comparable to those of Sharma et al. (1998). Ascorbic acid, total phenols and antioxidants were observed at 8.90 ± 0.10 mg / 100 g, 32.50 ± 0.20 mg / 100 g, 35.50 ± 0.20 percent, respectively. Sharma et al. (1998). Antioxidant activity and the phenol content 31.2 mg / 100 g and 34.3 mg / 100 g respectively have been found in “Granny smith” (Drogoudi and Pantelidis, 2011). Crude fibers were found between 2.00-3.00 %. Abdualrahman et al. (2015) reported similar results of 1.64 ± 0.01% of crude fiber in apples, while a water activity of 1.00 ± 0.50 was observed.

Data on the physico-chemical characteristics of fresh honey are presented in Table 2. The total soluble solids of fresh honey were 70.00°B, which was higher than the values observed by Lakhanpal (2010) but was lower than the observations of Kaushik et al. (1993). The free acid, lactone and total acid content in meq per 100 g were 3.60, 0.98 and 4.47 respectively were slightly higher as recorded by (Singh, 1994) and Kaushik et al. (1993). Total and non-reducing sugars recorded were respectively 65.34% and 5.74%. Lakhanpal (2010), Mishra (1995) and (Phadke, 1967) recorded the total sugars and non-reducing sugars of different types of honey, which were close to the values recorded in the study. Fresh honey had a moisture content of 16.50 per cent with an ash content of 0.19 per cent. The observed fructose, glucose and their proportions were (35.85, 30.24, 1.18%) respectively. The observed fructose and glucose content of honey was 35.85 and 30.24 per cent, which was within the same range observed by Poncini and Wimmer (1987) and Singh (1994).

The observed HMF content was 9.35 mg / kg lower than the values recorded by Lakhanpal (2010), Bulut and Kilic (2009). However, the number of diastases recorded was higher than the values observed by (Hebbar et al. 2003) and (Simpson et al. 1968). Ivanov (1973) reported a diastasis number of 24.8, although Nair (1983) and Phadke et al. (1970) found that the number of diastases ranged between 0-2.5 and 0-12.5, respectively.

The data presented in Fig. 1 show the drying time of osmosis dried apple pops (sugar and honey). For apple pops dipped in sugar, there was a weight loss of 13.59% and 17.42% for apple pops dipped in honey after one hour, while after two hours there was almost the 50% weight loss, which is 49.6% for sugar-dipped pops and 53.2% in apple pops dipped in honey. There was no weight loss after eight hours for sugar-dipped apple pops and seven hours for honey-dipped apple pops, no further reduction in pops weight.

The data presented in Fig. 2 shows the drying time for osmo-dried apple rings (sugar and honey). In case of sugar dipped apple rings there was 32.25 per cent weight loss and 35.35 per cent in honey dipped apple rings after one hour while after two hour there was 54.83 per cent weight loss in sugar dipped rings and 58.42 per cent in honey dipped apple rings. After five hours in case of sugar dipped apple rings (75.30 %) and four hours in case of honey dipped apple rings (78.03%) there was no further reduction in weight of rings. The moisture content in the apple tissue decreases exponentially with time from 5.54g H₂O/g dry solids to 1.59gH₂O/g dry solids after 24 hours (Derossi et al. 2008). Seiiedlou et al. (2010) observed that moisture content of samples decreases exponentially with the drying time and increased with increasing the drying air temperature and velocity. Similar results were observed by Figiel, (2007) in apple cubes. It has been concluded that 28 mm diameter for apple pops with osmo dipping time of three hours in case of sugar and four hours in case of honey at 50°C dried in eight hours and seven hours respectively. Apple rings of 0.5 cm thickness with osmo-dipping time of three and four hours in sugar and honey respectively at 50°C dried in five hours in sugar and four hours in honey.