Saturday, March 3, 2012

Whipped Cocoa Butter Recipe

I have been using the avocado-green Sunbeam mixer given to my mom when she was first married in 1968 for the past several years. It STILL works, but my son has asked several times if he could have it when he moves out and we've been looking for a replacement BEFORE the Sunbeam breathes it's last... and to be honest I've wanted something slightly more robust with a nice big dough-hook for awhile anyway. Meet Vincent. I named him Vincent because this mixer is one HUGE beast. And with a 300 watt motor, he's powerful too. I think it could beat our car to a smooth frothy consistency. Naturally with a new toy to play with, I feel the need to put it through a few... err... abusive paces to see what it's made of. Last night we whipped up some garlic-cheddar biscuits, and soon I'll be making oatmeal bread with the dough hooks. For this afternoon however, I thought I'd see how it handles running continuously. For an entire hour. On high. Because of course, you just never know when that'll come in handy with a mixer. I had an amazingly simple recipe for homemade whipped cocoa butter, but in searching around a bit I found some nice alternates to a few ingredients that I've been dying to try. And since we've just about finished up the last of my most recent batch, this seemed the perfect time to replenish our stock. To make this, you will need just four ingredients. These can be found at most health food stores, but if you can plan ahead... you can find them all online for MUCH cheaper! To make about four 4oz jars (I doubled the recipe because I plan on sharing) you will need: * 4oz cocoa butter (I prefer the wafers because they melt quicker) * 2oz apricot oil * 1tsp cornstarch * and 1/2tsp liquid Vitamin E If your cocoa butter is unscented you could also add up to a dozen drops of essential oils, (mandarin & lime would be divine!) but I prefer the chocolatey cocoa butter fragrance myself. To make this, melt down your cocoa butter, then refrigerate for 15 minutes to start it cooling. Whip it on medium in your blender for 15 minutes, then put it BACK into the refrigerator for another 10 minutes. Then whip it on high once more, for anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour. It's at this point that the mixture will go from being a gold liquid to a frothy white "whipped cream" consistency. That's what you want. I did mix mine for a full hour, but it didn't seem to expand after the first 30 minutes so that might have been plenty. Your mileage may vary, of course but that's what I noticed. Once it's done, simply spoon it into whatever cute jars you have laying around and use as you would a massage oil, or lotion. It will harden just a bit in the jar, but will melt on-contact with your skin so all you need to do is scoop out a teeny tiny bit and it'll melt down almost immediately. My kids prefer using this as hand cream just before bed! It smells divine, and after about 5 minutes any "greasy" sensation has soaked into the skin so ALL you're left with is wonderfully soft (chocolatey) skin!

1 comment:

Angie said...

Hi, thanks for this recipe, I wish to try to do'it today but I would like to know for sure when and how to ad the rest of ingredients, the starch for ex. and how can I make'it more consistent to use'it for full body massage without making a mess allarownd and maybe not so greasy. Did you ever tryied to ad glycerin? For more firmness must I ad some more starch> Must the starch be mix when melting the cocoa butter on the stove? Please tell me more:) thanks again!