Enzyme generated protein hydrolysates have received considerable attention due to their numerous health effects. Among these, the anti-oxidative hydrolysates with DPPH* radical scavenging activity can play a significant role in the prevention of oxidative stress and the resulting chronic disease conditions such as cancer. In the present study, defatted cocoa beans (DCB) powder was dialyzed and then hydrolyzed for 8 h to produce DCB protein hydrolysates using two different proteases (bromelain and papain) at an optimum pH (6.8), temperature (400C) and enzyme/substrate ratio (1:50). The resulting DCB protein hydrolysates were evaluated for peptide content (PC) and DPPH* radical scavenging activity. The highest DPPH* radical scavenging activity of 78.07% and 53.04% were obtained at a peptide content of 4.85 mg/dL and 3.13 mg/dL for the bromelain- and papain-generated DCB protein hydrolysates at 6 h hydrolysis time, respectively. The effect of hydrolysis time and peptide content on the DPPH* radical scavenging activity of the DCB protein hydrolysates was then studied. The result obtained indicated positive correlation between the DPPH* radical scavenging activity of both bromelain- and papain-generated DCB protein hydrolysates to their peptide content based on Pearson’s correlation analysis with R2 values of 0.946 and 0.772, respectively.