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Cocoa butter is
the ivory-colored natural fat of the cocoa bean extracted during the
manufacturing process of producing chocolate and cocoa powder.
It has a very subtle mellow flavor
that gives chocolate its creamy smooth, melt-in-your-mouth texture. The quality
of the cocoa butter depends on the quality of the bean it came from and the
process of separating it from the chocolate liquor. Cocoa butter is
solid at room temperature but it has a low melting point (just below body
temperature) and it does change from a solid to a liquid quickly (ie. sharp
melting point).
The quality of chocolate depends on
the amount of cocoa butter added during processing. The reason a piece of good
chocolate melts immediately when eaten is because the melting point of cocoa
butter is the same as our internal body temperature. Inferior brands of
chocolate use vegetable shortenings instead of cocoa butter.
Cocoa butter is the base of white chocolate
along with milk solids, sugar, vanilla and lecithin.
Cocoa butter is expensive and is used
both for cosmetics and baking (thinning chocolate, candy making, coating
marzipan figures for shine and also prevents them from drying out too fast).
Mainly found through mail order
sources.
Store cocoa butter in an airtight
container and it will keep several years in the refrigerator.
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