Ghee essence is a flavouring added to food or fat to give it the smell and taste of ghee. Real ghee needs no such help: its flavour forms when butter is heated, as lactones, carbonyls, free fatty acids and browning products develop from milk fat, lactose and protein. FSSAI's standard says the raw material for ghee shall be free from added flavour, so an essence in anything sold as ghee is a sign it is not genuine.
At a glance
- FSSAI regulation 2.1.8 says the raw material for ghee "shall be free from added flavour, colour or preservative".
- FSSAI's food additives table lists ghee with the note "no additives in case of ghee".
- FSSAI's vanaspati standard says any flavour used "shall be distinct from that of ghee", and bans any colour resembling ghee's.
- A 2002 laboratory analysis in the Journal of Dairy Research found 62 volatile compounds across ghee and butter oil samples, with up to 36 in desi ghee.
- A 2023 review in the Journal of Food Science and Technology says the total amount of lactone in ghee is about double that in butter.
What is ghee essence?
Ghee essence is a trade name for a flavouring made to imitate the aroma and taste of ghee. It is not a category in FSSAI's regulations. In regulatory terms it is a flavouring agent: a substance or preparation added to food to give it taste, smell or both.
FSSAI's food additive regulations define flavouring agents as "flavour substances, flavour extracts or flavour preparations, which are capable of imparting flavouring properties, namely taste or odour or both to food". They sort them into three types:
- Natural flavours, obtained by physical processes from material fit for eating.
- Nature-identical flavouring substances, isolated or made synthetically but chemically identical to substances found in natural foods.
- Artificial flavouring substances, which have not been identified in natural foods at all.
A bottle labelled ghee essence could fall into any of these classes; only its own label says which. The regulations do settle where such a flavour may go.
Is it legal to add flavour to ghee?
No. FSSAI's standard for milk fat products, regulation 2.1.8, says the raw material for ghee "shall be free from added flavour, colour or preservative". The food additives table goes further and lists ghee with the note "no additives in case of ghee". A fat with added essence does not meet the definition of ghee.
The same standard explains why no flavouring is needed. It describes ghee as a product that "has especially developed flavour and physical structure as a result of its method of manufacturing". The standard also sets measurable limits that an oil blend cannot meet: at least 99.5 per cent milk fat, a negative Baudouin test and no beta-sitosterol, a test the standard pairs with a laboratory method for detecting vegetable oil in ghee.
The rule runs the other way too. FSSAI's standard for vanaspati says that if any flavour is used, it "shall be distinct from that of ghee", and that "in no event any colour resembling the colour of ghee shall be added". The standard for interesterified vegetable fat carries the same two clauses. Vegetable fats may be flavoured, but not to smell or look like ghee.
How is ghee essence used in fake ghee?
It supplies the aroma that an oil blend lacks. In one documented case, FSSAI officials in Tiruppur seized nearly 500 litres of adulterated ghee in 2019. The officer who led the raid said the sellers made it from palmolein oil and vanaspati, used seeds for colour and "added artificial essence for aroma".
The report, from The Hindu and kept on FSSAI's own website, quotes B. Vijayalalithambigai, the FSSAI Designated Officer for Tiruppur: "For the colour, they had used certain seeds that imparted yellow colour and added artificial essence for aroma." The samples were sent to laboratories for testing.
Smell is therefore a poor test of purity on its own. A flavouring can copy the aroma, while the measures that separate milk fat from vegetable fat, such as the fatty acid profile and beta-sitosterol, need a laboratory. Our guide to ghee adulteration in India and the lab tests that catch it explains those tests.
What gives real ghee its flavour?
Heat does most of the work. When butter is clarified, lactose, fat, proteins and amino acids break down and react. A 2023 review in the Journal of Food Science and Technology says this generates carbonyls, free fatty acids and lactones, "which are responsible for the development of ghee flavor", with Maillard browning and caramelisation the main reactions.
The review, by Kumbhare and colleagues, says these reactions speed up as the moisture boils off, "particularly when almost all of the moisture is evaporated and the contents are held at around 115 °C". It describes the target as a "rich nutty, pleasant and slightly caramelized flavour". The brown particles that settle out, the ghee residue, form from the same Maillard reaction and caramelisation of the milk solids.
The review also notes that minimal heating, just enough to drive off water from separated fat, gives butter oil or anhydrous milk fat, "both of which lacks the characteristic ghee flavour". Heat past a point has the opposite problem: browning that goes too far, covered in why ghee turns black.
Which compounds make up ghee flavour?
Four groups recur in the research: lactones, carbonyls such as methyl ketones and aldehydes, free fatty acids, and Maillard and lactose-breakdown products such as maltol and furans. None works alone. The 2002 laboratory analysis found 62 volatile compounds in total across its ghee and butter oil samples.
| Compound class | How it forms in real ghee | What the research says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lactones (δ-decalactone, δ-dodecalactone, δ-tetradecalactone) | Hydrolysis of hydroxy glycerides in milk fat, then ring closure (lactonisation) of the hydroxy acids | Coconut-type aroma; concentration rises with clarification temperature; about double the amount in butter | Kumbhare et al. 2023 (review) |
| Carbonyls (methyl ketones, aldehydes) | Microbial metabolism, fat oxidation and heat breakdown of lactose and fat | Alkan-2-ones are the main mono-carbonyls; polar carbonyls rise with cream ripening and higher clarification temperature | Kumbhare et al. 2023 (review) |
| Free fatty acids (including acetic acid) | Produced when fat is heated; a high share of acetic acid has been linked to Acetobacter bacteria | Linked to rancidity in other fats but contribute to ghee flavour; acetic acid far higher in desi ghee | Kumbhare et al. 2023; Wadodkar et al. 2002 |
| Maillard and lactose products (maltol, furfural, 5-hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde) | Maillard browning and the breakdown (caramelisation) of lactose | Maltol and 5-hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde found only in desi ghee in one analysis | Wadodkar et al. 2002 (lab analysis) |
The lactones are the clearest marker. The review reports that δ-lactones are the primary flavouring lactones in ghee, that "lactone concentration in ghee increased with an increase in the ghee boiling temperature", and that ghee holds about double the lactone of butter, "which indicated that heat plays a major role".
Does the way ghee is made change its flavour?
The evidence says yes, though it is limited. A 2002 laboratory analysis from the National Dairy Development Board found more aroma compounds in desi ghee made from fermented cream than in three market ghee samples or butter oil. A study cited in a 2023 review also found that ripening the cream with certain cultures improved ghee flavour.
In that analysis, by Wadodkar and colleagues in the Journal of Dairy Research, desi ghee was made in the laboratory from fermented cream by heat clarification, and butter oil from fresh butter by melting and centrifuging. The counts were:
- Desi ghee: up to 36 volatile compounds.
- Three brands of industrial ghee: 22 to 29.
- Butter oil: 16.
Maltol, 5-hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde and three other compounds turned up only in the desi ghee, and acetic acid was "remarkably higher" there than in industrial ghee. This was a chemical analysis of a handful of samples, not a tasting panel, so it shows a difference in composition rather than proving one ghee tastes better. The 2023 review adds that cream ripened with Streptococcus lactis and Streptococcus diacetylactis improved ghee flavour, while cream fermented with Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus had no major influence.
Himdhara's ghee is made the slow, curd-first way: whole milk set into curd overnight with a native starter, churned on a wooden bilona, and the butter clarified over a wood fire. The bilona process, step by step shows each stage. We make no claim about the compound count of our own ghee.
Can you tell essence-flavoured fat from real ghee by smell?
Not reliably. An essence is made to copy ghee's aroma, and in the Tiruppur case it was added for exactly that reason. The differences the regulations rely on, such as milk fat content, fatty acid profile, the Baudouin test and beta-sitosterol, are measured in a laboratory, not by nose.
What a buyer can do is check the label and the source. A product sold as ghee should be made only from milk or products obtained from milk, because that is the only raw material the standard allows. A label naming flavour, essence or vegetable oil on something called ghee is a warning in itself. A batch laboratory report, where a maker publishes one, is a stronger check than smell; Himdhara publishes a report for each batch on the lab reports page.
The short version
Ghee essence is a flavouring that imitates ghee's aroma. FSSAI says the raw material for ghee must be free from added flavour, and vegetable fats such as vanaspati may not carry a ghee-like flavour or colour. Essence has been found in seized fake ghee made from palmolein and vanaspati. Real ghee's flavour comes from heating butter, which forms lactones, carbonyls, free fatty acids and browning products. Smell cannot separate the two; a laboratory test can.
Sources
Further reading behind the figures above. Himdhara's own numbers — yields, batch results — come from our production records and the batch reports on the lab reports page.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Chapter 2.1: Dairy products and analogues. Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (2022). Compendium: Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011. FSSAI, Version XXVI.
- Kumbhare S, Prasad W, Khamrui K, Wani AD, Sahu J (2023). Recent innovations in functionality and shelf life enhancement of ghee, clarified butter fat. Journal of Food Science and Technology.
- Wadodkar UR, Punjrath JS, Shah AC (2002). Evaluation of volatile compounds in different types of ghee using direct injection with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Journal of Dairy Research.
- The Hindu (2019). Adulterated ghee seized in Tiruppur. Reproduced on the FSSAI website.