What is cocoa butter?

On the left is an image of Van Houten’s cocoa press, a machine used to press cocoa butter out of the cocoa beans. On the right is a cocoa bean, with the fat (cocoa butter) on the left, and defatted cocoa solids on the right.

Cocoa butter is the fat within the cocoa bean. Cocoa beans are the seeds of the cacao tree, and are about 50% fat.

The fat is a triglyceride (TAG) and made up of various fatty acids bonded together. Cocoa butter is made up from mostly these three fatty acids:

  • Oleic

  • Stearic

  • Palmitic

The fats are usually in the form POP (1,3-dipalmitoyl2-oleoyl-glycerol), POS (1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-3-stearoyl-glycerol) and SOS (1,3-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-glycerol). A small percentage of other forms are found as well binary mixtures including OOO (1,2,3-trioleoyl-glycerol) and PPP (1,2,3-tripalmitoyl-glycerol), PPP and POP, and POP and POO (1-palmitoyl-2,3-dioleoyl-glycerol).

The fat of the cocoa bean is extracted to produce cocoa butter. The cocoa butter is purified by removing debris and cocoa solids. The fat is a light yellow colour when liquid, and a cream off-white colour when solid. It is often sold either as is (non-deodorized) or with the scent/flavour removed (deodorized).

Cacao grown in different regions has been found to have slightly different amounts of fat within the seed and different hardness of fat due to different TAG makeup.

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