Abstract:Cooking liquor, a by-product of the high-temperature steaming of fish maw, was used to prepare fish-maw peptides and develop functional gummy candies. Single-factor and response surface experiments were employed to optimize the candy formulation.. The optimal parameters were determined as follows: the proportion of fish gelatin in the compound gelling agent was 86.73%, the content of the compound gelling agent was 9.39%, the content of maltitol was 10.22%, and the content of fish maw peptides was 0.32%.Under these conditions, the sensory evaluation score recorded 94.6 and the product was found to comply with relevant national standards. The textural properties (including hardness, cohesiveness, and chewiness) of the gummies were improved.Furthermore, significant hypoglycemic activity was exhibited by the gummies after in vitro simulated gastrointestinal digestion: at a concentration of 6 mg·mL?1, the inhibition rates of α-glucosidase and α-amylase were measured as 90.85% and 70.69%, respectively.Storage stability was satisfactory; based on the Q?? model, the theoretical shelf-life at room temperature was predicted to be 64.2 days, an effect attributed to the bioactivity of the peptides.Thus,the study enhanced the value of fish-maw processing by-products and provided technical support for the development of fish-maw-peptide functional gummy candies.