Cocoa Butter: Learn all about this amazing ingredient
The characteristics of cocoa butter for the kitchen are many and truly surprising. Let's find out everything you need to know!
Cocoa butter is obtained by pressing the cocoa beans that, once roasted and crumbled, give life to this fundamental component of the kitchen and the art of confectionery. Its taste is neutral, rich in fatty acids and extremely natural. It is sold, in fact, without any chemical additives.
Cocoa butter is found within the fruit of the cocoa bean: it is, in practice, the natural fat of cocoa. Hence his name. The Theobroma tree, from whose seeds and fruits cocoa butter is made, grows in South America and in the tropical areas of the world.
Cocoa butter is healthier than other fats used in cooking (such as butter made from animal fats and olive oil!) and even has a higher smoking point. Translated, this means that the temperature at which it begins to be harmful to health is much higher than other food fats and therefore better for you. The methods of use, however, are exactly the same.
The cocoa butter is white, flavourless, odourless and soap-like in its firmness. The average melting temperature of those fats is 35 degrees Celsius. Which means that cocoa butter melts easily in the mouth — even on the skin, which is why cocoa butter is in such high demand in the cosmetic industry.
What are the properties of cocoa butter?
Cocoa butter contains natural antioxidants that make it particularly suitable for food use. Although it may seem like just pure fat, edible cocoa butter contains barely any cholesterol. This due to the fact its high lipid content makes it possible for cocoa butter (as well as almond oil, for example) to have protective properties for the body.
Another extremely appreciated feature of cocoa butter is the high smoke point, which is set at 230 degrees centigrade, as opposed to the 160 degrees of normal cow's milk butter and 210 degrees of extra virgin olive oil.
Cocoa Butter: Food
To understand how to use cocoa butter, we must start with the assumption that it can be used as a substitute for cow's butter in almost all normal preparations, both in the oven and in the pan. Moreover, it is a vegetable product, which therefore lends itself perfectly to vegan cuisine in place of butter of animal origin. You can fry, cream & use to grease cake moulds, it is almost impossible to find a recipe in which it is not possible to replace animal fat based products with cocoa butter!
It can be used to great effect to prepare puff pastry or short pastry, but above all in combination with chocolate. For example, to increase chocolate’s fluidity and its smoothness when melted. Pastry chefs also use it to increase the stability, shine and crunchiness of tempered chocolate.
Food-Grade Cocoa Butter: how to get it…
But for our desserts, we always want the best, right? Cocoa butter is obtained from the pressing of cocoa beans brought up to a very high temperature, and like olive oil production, the more they are solicited to these extreme temperatures, the more they are spoiled producing a cheaper but worse quality product.
Great food-grade cocoa butter is not easy to find, but you can buy it online here from the famous brand Callebaut in Callets or in powder suitable for baking and tempering.
Raw “White Chocolate” Truffles
50 g of Cocoa Butter
25 g of Coconut Oil
4 Tablespoons of Agave Syrup
3 Tablespoons of Almond Paste (you can substitute with pistacchio or hazelnut paste)
Desiccated Coconut for covering
Melt the cocoa butter and coconut oil in a bain-marie without exceeding 45 °C Mix all the ingredients to mix well, until you get a homogeneous mixture and let it rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. After this time, take some of the mixture and make balls with your hands. To finish roll the chocolate balls in the desiccated coconut and serve.
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