Homemade Shealoe Butter Cream

I keep hearing about aloe and shealoe (shea + aloe) butters, and they confuse me. You see, aloe is water soluble, so somewhere in that butter there is some sort of wizardry going on, because aloe is patently nota butter. That’s about as ridiculous as the idea of celery butter. New Directions explains the creation of their aloe butter as “developed from the extraction of the Aloe Vera pulp using a fatty coconut fraction to produce a soft-solid butter”. Huh. That sounds suspiciously wizard-like.

wanted something that’s moisturizing and awesome, that utilizes all the great qualities of both shea butter and aloe vera that didn’t require chemical wizardry (or the rather steep price tag that often accompanies such wizardry—$23/kg vs. $8/kg for plain shea butter). You won’t be hard pressed to find recipes for some sort of shealoe butter online, but the ones I found all used processed aloe vera gel, and contained no emulsifiers. I’m assuming there must have been something emulsifying in the store bought gel as they seemed to work out in the end, but that’s not my style.

38g | 1.34oz raw shea butter
2g | 0.07oz vitamin E
10g | 0.35oz emulsimulse (or other emulsifying wax)
48g | 1.7oz aloe vera juice
2g | 0.07oz vegetable glycerin

Melt the shea butter and emulsifier in a small saucepan over medium low heat.

While the shea butter melts, combine the aloe vera juice and glycerin in a small container and warm through, stirring so the glycerin dissolves.

Once the shea butter and emulsifying wax have melted, add the aloe mixture and heat through, ensuring everything comes to the same temperature (and that everything is melted at that temperature).

Begin whisking. Do not let it cool too quickly or it may split. Whisk away as it cools until you have a beautiful, thick butter cream. Whisk in your preservative and decant into tins or a 125mL (4oz) mason jar.

Makes 100mL (3.3 fl oz) of butter cream.