This study investigates the effect of microwave susceptor in changing the heating pattern of a microwave by using the temperature profile, hardness, and color of a cupcake during baking at a power of 600 W. The results reveal that the use of a susceptor affects not only the surface temperature, but also the temperature profile of the cake center. The cake’s surface temperature reaches above 160 ?C. Moreover, the cake center is significantly lower when using the susceptor, compared to the microwave method. The results also show that by using the microwave susceptor, the baked cake has lower hardness than the microwave method. In addition, the values of color factors of the baked cake in the microwave method have significant differences with those in the susceptor method. Therefore, temperature profile, hardness, and color factor difference between microwave and microwave susceptor processing are related to use the susceptor. Using the susceptor leads to excess temperature on the sample’s surface with wave absorbing more than the foodstuff, which leads to a rapid increase in temperature in the sample’s surface, higher brown color and less hardness than the microwave method. Therefore, the susceptor changes heating pattern and closes to conventional heating. Keywords: Microwave baking; susceptor, heating pattern, color, Temperature
