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Butters

Cupuaçu Butter

INCI Theobroma Grandiflorum Seed Butter. Also: Cupuassu Butter, Cupuassu Seed Fat, Theobroma Grandiflorum Seed Butter.

Calculate a 100 % Cupuaçu Butter bar

Published values

Saponification value190.92–190.92 mg KOH/g
Used by the calculator190.9 mg KOH/g (midpoint)
SAP for NaOH0.1361 g/g
Iodine value74.3–74.3 g I₂/100 g
INS (SAP − IV)117
Melting point30–30 °C
Unsaponifiable matter

A bar made of 100 % Cupuaçu Butter

Hardness 41 29–54
Cleansing 1 below 12–22
Conditioning 57 44–69
Bubbly lather 1 below 14–46
Creamy lather 40 16–48

Conventional qualities summed from the fatty-acid groups; a single-oil bar is a reference point, not a recipe.

Fatty-acid profile

Fatty acidPublished range, %Used
Lauric acid C12:0 · saturated 0.65–0.65 0.7
Myristic acid C14:0 · saturated 0.28–0.28 0.3
Palmitic acid C16:0 · saturated 7.51–8 7.8
Stearic acid C18:0 · saturated 31.78–32.7 32.2
Oleic acid C18:1 40–40.6 40.3
Linoleic acid C18:2 5.28–5.28 5.3
α-Linolenic acid C18:3 n-3 11.56–11.56 11.6
Arachidic acid C20:0 · saturated 0.29–10.4 5.3
Behenic acid C22:0 · saturated 2.05–2.05 2.0

Where these numbers come from

Grasas y Aceites (CSIC)da Silva DCS, de Carvalho-Guimarães FB, Valente IP, Cunha N, da C. Sanches SC, da Silva DA, Silva Júnior JOC, da Silva LHM, da C. Rodrigues AM. "Fatty acid profile and rheological behavior of annatto seed oil (Bixa orellana), cupuassu seed fat (Theobroma grandiflorum), and their blends." Grasas y Aceites 74(1), e489. · document dated 2023 · read 2026-09-21

Table 1: saponification value, iodine value, and full fatty-acid composition (lauric through behenic) for cupuassu seed fat (CSF), all directly measured by this study via GC and standard wet-chemistry methods; also gives SFA/MUFA/PUFA subtotals that internally cross-check against the individual fatty acid values.

Orbital: The Electronic Journal of Chemistry (UFMS)Yanes CVI, de Melo Filho AA, Ribeiro PRE, et al. "Inhibition of Acetylcholinesterase and Fatty Acid Composition in Theobroma grandiflorum Seeds." Orbital 9(3), 2017. · read 2026-09-21

Abstract only (full PDF not accessible to me): major fatty acids oleic 40.0%, stearic 32.7%, arachidic 10.4%, palmitic 8.0%, of 9 total FAs detected by GC. Used as a cross-check on da Silva et al. 2023; flags the arachidic-acid discrepancy.

Amazon Oil (producer)Cupuaçu Butter (Theobroma grandiflorum) technical/product page · read 2026-09-21

Producer page states melting point approx. 30C and butter yield approx. 45% from seeds; no SAP/iodine/fatty-acid percentages given on this page.

SAP (190.92 mg KOH/g) and iodine (74.30 g I2/100g) are da Silva et al. 2023 Table 1 directly-measured values for one study's samples (GC for fatty acids; standard titration for SAP/iodine), not a stated commercial range, so real batch-to-batch spread is likely wider than shown. Fatty acids combine da Silva et al. 2023 (full 9-acid profile) with Yanes et al. 2017 (Orbital journal, abstract only: oleic 40.0%, stearic 32.7%, arachidic 10.4%, palmitic 8.0%, out of 9 total FAs detected but not all listed in the accessible abstract). Oleic/stearic/palmitic agree reasonably (~40/32-33/7.5-8%) between the two studies, but arachidic acid diverges sharply (0.29% da Silva vs 10.4% Yanes) - flagged as an open discrepancy, not resolved by a third primary source. da Silva's alpha-linolenic figure (11.56%) is unusually high for a seed butter; Yanes' abstract does not report linolenic so it neither confirms nor contradicts this; other (unopened, not independently verified by me) secondary literature suggests cupuaçu linolenic may typically run much lower (~0.4%), so treat 11.56% with caution pending a third opened primary source before relying on it for formulation math. Melting point (~30C, no range given) is from Amazon Oil's own producer page (amazonoil.com.br), a Brazilian butter/oil producer - not cross-checked against a peer-reviewed source. Unsaponifiable matter: checked da Silva et al. 2023 (not reported), Yanes et al. 2017 abstract (not reported), and Amazon Oil's producer page (not reported) - left null, no allowed source located.

This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.