Call it cacao or cocoa butter, it is one of the major ingredients that skin creams use for moisturizing lotions.
This ingredient becomes more important in our lives. Despite the name butter added to it, it ain’t any dairy product and is in fact, a vegan product.
Because of its texture and long shelf life, cocoa butter is often used in skincare products.
In this article, we will share with you the detailed process of how to make it easily at home and its various uses.
What exactly is cocoa butter?
Discovered in 1828 by a Dutch scientist named Conrad Von Houten, cocoa butter is also known as theobroma oil and is one of the most stable natural fats obtained from cacao beans with powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It is also a major source of many essential minerals such as magnesium, copper, potassium, and iron.
How it is used?
Not just for skincare, cocoa butter can be used for cooking purposes as well. It is often used for making chocolate bars and even white chocolate, and the use of cocoa butter gives the chocolate a silky & smooth finish. With a pale yellow & chocolaty flavour, cocoa butter is sold in its solid form and needs to be melted before cooking. One can often find cocoa butter in body creams, scrubs, lip balms, and foot creams.
How to cook with cocoa butter?
This butter adds a bit of creaminess to the sweet & savoury recipes. One can easily replace the cooking oils/butter with this cocoa butter in vegan and dairy-free recipes. You would be surprised to know that cocoa butter has a high smoking point and thus, it can be used for high-temperature cooking. Its quantity is also used less for it needs to be melted first before cooking.
The process of making cocoa butter
The extraction process of cocoa butter is quite simple; however, it requires patience. To make this butter at home, first, the seeds are removed from cocoa pods. After extracting them in good quantity, they are fermented for at least 10 days. Afterwards, the beans are sun-dried on a clean cloth. Then, these beans are roasted and then separated from the shell. Once the actual cocoa nib is obtained, they are added to a grinder jar and finely ground. Pass this paste through cotton cloth to obtain that perfect cocoa butter and store it as you like.
