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juri Stardust Offline Posts: 1341 USA Gender:	whip it! whip it good Sep 23^rd, 2007 at 5:44am Sorry about the Devo reference, but I couldn't help myself. Anyway, does anyone know how to whip butters? My microwave doesn't have a heat setting so I ended up melting the cocoa and kokum butters I was trying to whip together. Would heating them in a double broiler help?
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texian.traveler

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Re: whip it! whip it good
Reply #1 - Sep 23^rd, 2007 at 9:31am

You want a mixer. I am not familiar with the butters you mentioned, but just going from an ordinary cooking viewpoint, you want to do this.

When the butters are at room temperature, you want to use either the whip attachment on your mixer or a whisk. You know, those things that look like six strands of wire have been wrapped around a balloon and then the balloon was popped. (In fact, they are sometimes called a "balloon whisk.")

Whipping, in the cooking sense, is incorporating air into the mixture. If you don't have a mixer or a whisk, you can use a fork. Make sure you lift as you stir, so that the maximum amount of air can be trapped. The stirring should be more in a vertical sort of circle than horizontal.

Out of curiosity, why are you whipping these butters?

And I loved Devo!

But you have either revealed yourself as "having great taste in music" or ...Old!"

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juri

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Re: whip it! whip it good
Reply #2 - Sep 23^rd, 2007 at 9:47am

Thanks, texian.traveler! I have a whisk and the suggestion about using a vertical motion should help once I get the right consistency for working with the butters (cocoa and and kokum are both really hard and don't soften at room temperature). I meant to write why I want to whip the butters, but it totally slipped my mind. I want to use them as an alternative to shea on my hair and possibly as a moisturizer once winter rolls around. I *think* the butters will stay soft if I whip them and won't turn really solid again afterward. I guess I'll find out through some (or a lot) of experimenting. If not, well, I'll have a lot of cocoa and kokum if anyone at work needs some.

lol, I don't know if I have great taste in music, but I do know that I've gotten to the point where my JHS kids have no idea who David Bowie is. (I once said that one of my favorite movies is " 'Labyrinth' with David Bowie" and they were like, "Who?") Plus, child of the 80s, couldn't resist. Grin

edit: spelling, realizing I was right the first time, and then fixing html tags. It's almost 11pm here; I need to go to bed soon

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Tara Sapphire Offline Tail-Bone Length, Straight Hair. Posts: 200 Fort Myers, FL Gender:	Re: whip it! whip it good Reply #3 - Oct 8^th, 2007 at 2:10pm unfortunately applying heat to butters ultimately alwas melts them, if you leave them at room temp usually they should be soft enought o whisk into a whiped consitancy, but yeah, use an electric, thats too much to whip by hand! ouch... cramp!
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juri

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Re: whip it! whip it good
Reply #4 - Oct 9^th, 2007 at 7:41am

Thanks for the suggestions, Tara! They're much appreciated, but I ended up reading and then learning for myself that the butter needs to be melted, refrigerated, whipped, refrigerated, whipped, etc. Kind of troublesome to say the least. I wish I had an electric mixer! lol My wrist was about ready to fall off by the time I finished making my experimental batch of whipped butter. Ah well. Making it myself saved me at least $14 compared to buying it online.

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Tara Sapphire Offline Tail-Bone Length, Straight Hair. Posts: 200 Fort Myers, FL Gender:	Re: whip it! whip it good Reply #5 - Oct 9^th, 2007 at 9:56am ahhh, well to calrify butter you have to melt it and refrigerate again, so maybe the method is similar? thats aweful about having to do it so much though! and whipping cold butters aint no easy task! O_o, I dont envy you! but did it turn out good?
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juri

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Re: whip it! whip it good
Reply #6 - Oct 10^th, 2007 at 4:13am

Hmm, it might be similar, but never having clarified butter before, I don't really know. (Don't like to cook Tongue

) Actually, as long as I didn't let the butter sit in the freezer too long (about 1 minute each time), whipping it wasn't too bad. The second time I experimented with whipping butters for my hair, I would leave it in the freezer too long and would have to hold it over a pot of hot water to soften everything up.

Thanks for asking how it turned out! I'm still on a learning curve, but the current batch turned out much better than the second. I mixed shea butter with cocoa butter and added more rose hip and camellia oil. The consistency was a lot lighter and resembled buttercream. However, it still set a bit hard, but not as hard as the 2nd try (it was way hard). On the up side, the 3rd batch melts extremely quickly in my palms; which was exactly what I was aiming for so I'm very happy.

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Tara Sapphire Offline Tail-Bone Length, Straight Hair. Posts: 200 Fort Myers, FL Gender:	Re: whip it! whip it good Reply #7 - Oct 10^th, 2007 at 9:48am are you applying it for a deep condition? I've been wanting to experiment with shea butter.
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joeydog 1992

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Re: whip it! whip it good
Reply #8 - Oct 10^th, 2007 at 8:42pm

Juri,

I admit I have only breezed through this topic and don't have a full grasp on it...but I have a couple of little thoughts...if I have read it well enough to be on track.

1) I would not clarify cocoa or shea butter. Clarifying is for cooking as far as I know and not for moisture things...but that is my opinion. I say it based on the fact that heating things like cocoa butter and shea butter strip it of the nutrients. You want the nutrients as well as the oil!!! Even with cooking...I don't like clarifying...it tastes great but I like to keep to putting things that are healthy, not loaded with empty calories in my body...although when taken to a 5 star restraunt or my Cordon Blue friends cook...well ok...nasty tastey little calories (an lots of therm that are giving me no nutrion can be...acceptable... Grin

2) Having lived pre-microwave days...double boilers come to mind and are still used by chefs for chocolate melting since chocolate over heated or heated too fast gets a bad consistency. Now...I don't imagine you have a double boiler (it is a sauce pan which fits a sauce pan on top so you heat water in the bottom pay and let the heat rise to the second pan to heat the chocolate). Thats ok, neither do I. I put a sauce pan half filled with water on the stove and put it on a VERY low heat, put my chocolate (as that is what I am equating it to) in a thick mug and then put the mug into the water AS IT HEATS!!! Mix it with a fork the whole time (starting as soon as it is soft enough) because in this case you do not it to melt, just soften.

3) Like I said, clarifying takes out a lot of the nutrients...electric mixers are not that expensive and you don't need a grand one...but I do know how hard money can be to find. If you can put just $5 aside every 2 weeks, I am sure you could afford one that isn't fancy and it will do the job much more easily within about 10 weeks.

I like cocoa butter on my hair neat but I find if I take the time to let it melt in my hands it does ok. I LOVE it for a body moisturizer but I certainly do not have time to wait for enough to melt on my palms to cover my whole body. I mix a 50/50 mix of cocoa butter and Vitamin E to make my body moistuzer. I love it. It makes me crave chocolate though. I have to say though, I find that takes some mixing (without any softening) using an electric mixer. I can't imagine you trying to do neat cocoa butter by hand!!! Shocked

. I do love what this mix does for me, I love the smell and I love it will help with the stetch marks (both ingredients) from me getting soooo fat but working to lose it again (I was ill from Oct -July and the bed rest, meds and stuff put 40 awful pounds on me....but I WILL get rid of it).

Anyway, good luck. Let us know how it goes.

JD

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juri

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Re: whip it! whip it good
Reply #9 - Oct 14^th, 2007 at 7:28am

Thanks for the tips, JD! Yeah, I think I need to try the hot water method and heating the butters in that. I don't really care for the microwave method, actually. I'm kind of up in the air about the electric mixer. I know it would make things a lot easier for me, but I don't really want to ship it home when I move back to the states. Maybe I'll save my money so I can get a nice one after I leave Japan. Perhaps then I can finally try those cake recipes that call for an electric mixer. Cheesy

The cocoa and vitamin E moisturizer sounds really nice. Where do you get your vitamin E from?

Good luck with your weight loss! I know you can do it.

Thanks again! I'll write my results when my Mountain Rose Herbs order comes in and I have more shea butter to work with.

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DiamondPink Amethyst Offline LongLocks Rocks! Posts: 4 Gender:	Re: whip it! whip it good Reply #10 - Feb 7^th, 2008 at 11:33am This might seem rather redundant, but leave the butters out to room temperature, and when you go to whisk them, put them in a container twice as large as the amount of butter. Always tip the container to the side to whisk. These two things makes it much less effort.
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joeydog 1992 Ex Member	Re: whip it! whip it good Reply #11 - Feb 17^th, 2008 at 7:59am Hello Diamond Pink, welcome to the site. I can tell you that cocoa butter is ROCK hard at room temperature. When I whip it, I have to put 5 times as much vitamin E in as cocoa butter just to get it soft!!! It was a good idea but doesn't apply for cocoa butter. JD
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