What’s the Deal with Cocoa Powder?

Lately, a number of people have been coming into the shop asking for very specific brand name cocoa powders for baking recipes.

This is due mostly because XYZ Publication reprinted a recipe from great baker “so-and-so” whose decadent chocolate recipe said use Brand C cocoa powder. So in walk the well intended home bakers, quote in mind or recipe in hand, absolutely set on Brand C cocoa powder. Is Brand C really better than all the rest?

1. Probably not
2. The recipe also probably said “use Brand C or other similar product”.

Before we delve into this somewhat confusing topic, we need to understand a simple fact about bakers…The only thing that a room full of bakers can agree on is that they won’t agree on anything! Each and everyone has a secret process or ingredient that makes or breaks their creation(s) and no amount of logic can convince them otherwise. And given the results, each of them is right in some way.

The truth is that when one is talking about baking, the line between brands blurs easily. There is, however, a difference in quality of chocolate.

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Cocoa powder is the term for the nonfat component of chocolate.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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Simple right? Basically, there are two types of unsweetened cocoa powder: natural and Dutch-processed. Dutched is alkalized, has darker color and milder flavor. Natural or undutched is richer in flavor, more bitter and acidic. Its acid reacts well with baking soda in recipes to produce the desired leavening action. To add to the confusion, some companies are retaining higher levels of fat and other additions to dutched powder to produce an end product that has the desired elements of both types – mainly dark color and rich flavor. In the simplest forms, if you like intense chocolate flavor, use natural or undutched cocoa powder.

The question that naturally comes to mind is “Are they interchangeable?” Not without affect. This is a hardest part to understand because there are so many opinions. Aside from leavening, baking powder and baking soda contribute to texture, color and taste in a recipe. As mentioned above, the differing acidity levels of cocoa powder will affect the leavening of your baked goods. Generally speaking, if using natural cocoa the recipe will call for baking soda as the leavening agent; recipes using dutched cocoa will call for baking powder. Now sometimes you will see dutched cocoa powder and baking soda with acids like vinegar or buttermilk added to provide the needed acid. Recipes that call for both baking soda and baking powder are probably using the baking soda to offset extra acidity in the batter (from ingredients like buttermilk or molasses) and to weaken the proteins in the flour.

However when one is confronted with only one type of cocoa powder in the pantry some people just prefer to make a recipe with the what you have on hand. Be forewarned: your results will vary and who knows you may really like what is produced. I have never had what I would call a failure using the “wrong” cocoa powder in baked goods even if it isn’t what the baking author intended.

Sweetened cocoa powder is for drinking. DO NOT use as a substitute for either of these in baking. I never use sweetened for anything as I make my own hot chocolate with natural cocoa powder and sugar and added shaved chocolate.

As to the brand names, that is another story.

There are many brand names out there from some lofty chocolate purveyors. Do these make any difference?

No. Here’s why. Even if you begin with the world’s finest chocolate (try to get agreement on what that is or even its country of origin), the process reduces the chocolate to the solids and therefore should reflect the best elements of the product. However, when one adds all the other ingredients [ flour, eggs, sugar, other flavor elements and maybe even solid chocolate from bars or chips] the distinctive elements can get lost. What will come through is the color or flavor elemental to the type of cocoa. You can do your own experiments, but if someone can tell the difference in the finished product between Valrhona, Scharffenberger and Droste cocoa powder (assuming all are the same i.e. dutched or undutched) then you need to get a job as a professional taster. I doubt that 99.9% of the world could taste the difference in the baked, finished product. I will stick by that claim even if making a chocolate cake with no other flavor additives. This statement applies to cocoa powder only, other types of chocolate are a different issue and will be discussed in a later post.

So when one is looking at brands and prices, know that as long as you are using a good company’s unsweetened, cocoa powder, you are dealing with the pure solids. And, aside from the dutched/undutched issues, buy them and use with joy.

Brands:

Undutched:

Hershey’s cocoa powder and special dark cocoa powder (not cocoa drinks or sweetened)
Ghiradelli
Scharffenberger (now an independently run sub-division of Hershey)
Chatfields

Dutched:

E. Guittard
Callebaut
Droste
Valrhona
Poulain
Lindt
Pernigotti

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