Chocolate Butter

Jump to Recipe

This chocolate butter is rich, deeply chocolatey, and so smooth you will want to eat it straight from the jar with a spoon. Made with a double chocolate method that eliminates every trace of graininess. Spread it on warm toast, scones, waffles, or croissants and watch it melt into something genuinely extraordinary.

Whipped chocolate butter in a small glass jar with a swirled peak, with scones on a white plate in the background.

Quick Look

🍫 Recipe: Whipped Chocolate Butter
⏲️ Ready In: 15 minutes
👪 Servings: 16 tablespoons
🔪 Difficulty: Easy
💭 Top Tip: Bloom your cocoa powder in a small amount of melted butter before adding it to the whipped butter. This one step is the secret to a perfectly smooth texture with absolutely zero graininess, a problem that plagues lots of other chocolate butter recipes.

Why You'll Love This Recipe

The double chocolate method combines melted chocolate chips and bloomed cocoa for the deepest most complex chocolate flavor.
Blooming the cocoa in butter rather than liquid eliminates graininess completely.
Light and whipped rather than dense, it spreads beautifully.
Just lightly sweet so the chocolate flavor is the star rather than the sugar.
Made with salted butter so no additional salt is needed.
Keeps in the refrigerator for up to one month and freezes beautifully.

The Most Luxurious Chocolate Butter You Have Ever Tasted

There is a moment when you spread chocolate butter on a warm piece of toast and realize this is one of the best things you have ever eaten. Not because it is complicated. Because it is perfect.

Most chocolate butter recipes use cocoa powder alone or melted chocolate alone. Both approaches have problems. Cocoa powder alone can produce a slightly gritty texture that never fully dissolves into the butter fat, no matter how much you whip it. Melted chocolate alone gives you richness and sweetness but lacks the deep pure intensity that only cocoa can provide. This version uses both and the combination produces something neither achieves on its own.

The real secret though is the blooming technique. Instead of mixing dry cocoa powder directly into the butter, which is where the grittiness can come from, we bloom the cocoa first in a small amount of melted butter. Blooming opens up the cocoa particles and fully hydrates them in fat, releasing more flavor and ensuring a completely smooth result. It is the same principle bakers use when blooming cocoa in hot water for brownies, but here we use melted butter instead so we are not introducing any water into the recipe at all.

Chocolate butter spread thickly on a split scone on a white scalloped plate with a butter knife and jar of chocolate butter in the background.

The result is a butter that is light and whipped, deeply chocolatey, and completely smooth with zero graininess. We tested it at our bread and butter toast party as part of a collection of six compound butters and it was one of the most popular choices of the evening.

Our full compound butter recipes guide covers all six compound butters from the toast party with tested recipes and make-ahead timelines. You might also love our strawberry butter for a beautiful fruity alternative, or our whipped honey butter for the simplest two ingredient compound butter you will ever make.

Ingredients

Here are a few notes on the key ingredients before you get started. Full quantities are in the recipe card below.

Salted butter: We use salted butter as the base in this recipe and we do not add any additional salt. The salt in the butter provides exactly the right balance against the chocolate and the powdered sugar, and it enhances the chocolate flavor without making the butter taste salty. If you only have unsalted butter, add a small pinch of fine sea salt in Step 2.
Semi-sweet chocolate chips: Semi-sweet chocolate gives you rich chocolate flavor and just enough sweetness without tipping the butter into overly sweet territory. Good quality chocolate makes a meaningful difference here, so use a brand you enjoy eating on its own.
Unsweetened cocoa powder: This is the second layer of chocolate flavor and it is what gives the butter its depth and intensity. The blooming technique we use here transforms the cocoa completely. There's no graininess, just pure rich chocolate flavor. Stir the cocoa into the melted butter for blooming to get rid of any small lumps.
Powdered sugar: A small amount of powdered sugar rounds out the sweetness and helps everything come together smoothly. We use just 2 tablespoons which keeps the butter firmly in chocolate territory rather than dessert territory. Powdered sugar rather than granulated is important here because it dissolves completely without any graininess.

How to Make Chocolate Butter

Cocoa powder bloomed in melted butter and stirred into a smooth dark paste in a small white bowl on a wooden table.

Step 1: Bloom the cocoa. Place 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder in a small bowl. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter separately and pour it over the cocoa while it is still warm. Stir together into a smooth paste. Set aside to cool completely to room temperature before proceeding.

Melted semi-sweet chocolate in a white scalloped bowl on a wooden table.

Step 2: Melt the chocolate chips. Place the chocolate chips in a small microwave-safe bowl and melt in 30-second intervals and 50% power, stirring between each, until just melted and smooth. Set aside to cool. This is important. If the chocolate is too hot, it will melt the butter and you will end up with a greasy separated mess. If it is too cool, it will begin to set and be lumpy. Test the temperature on your wrist, it should not feel hot or cold.

Pale whipped butter in a stainless steel stand mixer bowl after being beaten until light and fluffy.

Step 3: Whip the butter. Place the room temperature butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl if using a hand mixer. Whip on medium high speed for 3 minutes until very light, pale, and fluffy. The butter will change color and increase in volume.

Pale fluffy whipped butter in a stand mixer bowl with cocoa paste beginning to be added.

Step 4: Add the cocoa paste. Add the cooled cocoa paste to the whipped butter and beat on medium speed until fully incorporated and smooth, about 1 minute.

Melted chocolate added to whipped butter mixture in a stand mixer bowl showing the two components beginning to combine.

Step 5: Add the melted chocolate. Add the cooled melted chocolate to the butter mixture and beat until fully incorporated and smooth, about 1 more minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Powdered sugar added to chocolate butter mixture in a stand mixer bowl ready to be incorporated.

Step 6: Add the powdered sugar. Add the powdered sugar and beat on medium speed until fully incorporated. The finished butter should be light, smooth, and deeply chocolatey. Transfer to a clean jar or shape into a log by placing on a piece of parchment paper, rolling tightly, and twisting the ends to seal. Store in the refrigerator. Remove about 30 minutes before serving so it softens to a beautifully spreadable consistency.

Glass jar of whipped chocolate butter on a wooden table with a white scalloped plate of scones and a silver butter knife alongside.

Expert Tips: Temperature Is Everything

The single most important thing to get right in this recipe is the temperature of the melted chocolate before you add it to the butter. Too hot and it will melt the butter fat and cause the whole mixture to separate. Too cool and it will start to set in streaks before it can incorporate evenly.
The wrist test is the most reliable way to check. Hold the bowl against the inside of your wrist. It should feel neutral, not warm nor cool. At that temperature the chocolate will flow into the butter smoothly and incorporate beautifully without causing any problems.
If the chocolate starts to firm up while you are working just give it a very brief 10 second warm in the microwave and test again. You want it fluid but not warm.

Variations

Dark chocolate butter: Substitute dark chocolate chips for the semi-sweet for a more intense less sweet result. This variation is particularly beautiful on croissants and brioche where the richness of the bread can stand up to the deeper flavor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my chocolate butter grainy?

Graininess in chocolate butter almost always comes from cocoa powder that has not been properly hydrated before being added to the butter fat. Dry cocoa particles do not dissolve easily in fat and leave a gritty texture no matter how long you whip. The blooming technique in this recipe solves this completely by hydrating the cocoa in warm melted butter before adding it to the whipped butter you eliminate graininess entirely.

Why did my chocolate butter separate?

Separation usually happens because the melted chocolate was added when it was still too warm. Hot chocolate melts the butter fat and breaks the emulsion. Make sure your melted chocolate has cooled to neutral wrist temperature before adding it to the whipped butter.

Can I use cocoa powder only without the melted chocolate?

You can but the result will have less richness and depth than the double chocolate version. The melted chocolate chips contribute a creaminess and complexity that cocoa powder alone cannot replicate.

What do you serve chocolate butter with?

Our favorite pairings are warm scones, brioche toast, croissants, waffles, and warm sour dough bread.

Can I use milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet?

You can but milk chocolate is significantly sweeter and will produce a noticeably sweeter butter. If you use milk chocolate reduce the powdered sugar to 1 tablespoon and taste before adding more.

How long does chocolate butter keep?

Up to one month in the refrigerator. Up to three months in the freezer wrapped tightly in parchment. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving to soften to a spreadable consistency.

More Compound Butter Recipes You Will Love

If you try this chocolate butter or any other recipe on my blog please leave a star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting today!

Recipe