Tuesday, April 10, 2012

WHAT IS Cocoa butter?


WHAT IS Cocoa butter?
Cocoa butter, also called cacao butter.
Cocoa butter, the fat portion of the cocoa bean,
is a completely vegetarian fat source and is directly responsible for the melt-in-your-mouth quality of chocolate, which is essentially cocoa butter that has been recombined with cocoa solids like cocoa powder.
Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, pure, edible vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, biscuits, and baked goods, as well as some pharmaceuticals, ointments, and toiletries.
Cocoa butter has a mild chocolate flavor and aroma.
Cocoa butter has a high content of saturated fats derived from stearic and palmitic acids. Cocoa butter
is obtained from whole cacao beans, which are fermented, roasted, and then separated from their hulls. About 54 – 58% 

of the residue is cocoa butter. Chocolate liquor is pressed to separate the cocoa butter from the cocoa solids. 
Cocoa butter is the major ingredient in the commercial production of both white chocolate and milk chocolate.
It can also be added to some types of frosting to keep it firmer

at room temperature.
Cocoa butter is one of the most stable fats known, a quality that coupled with natural antioxidants that prevent rancidity, grants it a storage life of two to five years. The velvety texture, pleasant fragrance and emollient properties of cocoa butter have made it a popular ingredient in products for the skin, such as cosmetics, soaps and lotions. Pregnant women have long used to cocoa butter formulations to prevent and treat stretch marks.
The most common form of cocoa butter has a melting point of around 34-38 °C (93-100 °F), rendering chocolate a solid at room temperature.
Cocoa Butter, the fat content of the cocoa bean, is a highly-stable vegetable fat that remains solid at room temperature but melts right around body temperature, responsible for the melt-in-your-mouth quality of chocolate. Chocolate is essentially cocoa butter that has been recombined with cocoa solids like cocoa powder. While cocoa butter is itself a dairy-free fat, many chocolate products contain dairy ingredients such as casein, whey, milk powder, milk solids or traces of milk.

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