Jackie Kinyanjui
What is cocoa powder?
Cocoa powder is the resultant dry powder in the processing of cocoa beans. The process starts by cracking open wet cacao pods, a week after harvesting, then extracting the cacao beans from the pods. The beans are then fermented, to reduce their bitterness and increase chocolate flavour and aroma. The beans then get dried, roasted to form cacao nibs.
The cacao nibs are ground into a paste called chocolate liquor, also known as cocoa mass which is half cocoa solids and half cocoa butter. The liquor is pressed to remove most of the cocoa butter leaving behind a dry, chocolate tasting powder which we call cocoa powder. Unlike chocolate, the cocoa powder has no added fat or sugar hence the name “unsweetened cocoa powder” in most cocoa powder packaging.
Cacao powder vs cocoa powder
Cacao refers to the raw beans that are harvested to start the process of making chocolate products. Cacao powder is made from unroasted cacao beans that have been dried and just minimally processed while cocoa powder, as indicated above, is made from cacao beans that have been fermented, dried and roasted then ground to make cocoa powder. Cacao powder is more bitter with less chocolate flavour than cocoa powder. While the two may be used interchangeably in baking, the resulting flavour will vary.
Types of cocoa powder
Natural cocoa: Natural cocoa powder is cocoa powder in its pure form. It is lighter in colour, acidic and with a more bitter taste than dutch-processed cocoa powder.
Dutch cocoa: Dutch-processed cocoa powder is a type of cocoa powder derived from alteration of the ph of natural cocoa powder, by passing chocolate liquor through a basic compound(usually potassium carbonate or sodium carbonate) before the liquor is pressed to make cocoa powder. This makes the cocoa powder alkaline. The degree of alkalising the cocoa powder varies between different manufacturers, yielding cocoa powder with differing colour intensities. The other name for dutch-process cocoa powder is alkalised cocoa powder. It is milder in taste that natural cocoa powder, with more chocolate flavour and yields a denser, fudgier taste and texture in chocolate cake such as this chocolate fudge cake.
Black/dark cocoa powder: This is a variation of dutch-process cocoa powder that has been highly alkalised, making the colour of the cocoa powder dark/black. You might find that some manufacturers make both dark and black cocoa powder but it is essentially the same thing with different amounts of alkalising agent. In as much as dutch cocoa powder types have more chocolate flavour than their natural cocoa counterparts, black cocoa does not have as much chocolate flavour like mildly alkalised cocoa powder. Oreo sandwich cookies are made using black cocoa powder. This no bake chocolate mousse combines the flavours of oreo and chocolate amazingly.
Substituting cocoa powder types
In this blog, all the chocolate recipes can be made with either types of cocoa powder. However, it is possible to substitute cocoa powder types to suit differerent chocolate based recipes as follows:
To swap natural cocoa powder for the Dutch process cocoa powder called for in a recipe, add 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar, white vinegar, or lemon juice for every 3 tablespoons cocoa powder. Conversely, if you replace dutch cocoa powder with natural cocoa powder process, you need to add 1/8 teaspoon baking soda(alkaline)for every 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder to match the acidity of the natural cocoa powder.
Which cocoa powder should I use?
the type of cocoa powder to use depends on what kind you have! There may be some changes to make depending on the type you have. Early chocolate cake recipes used only baking soda, which is alkaline. Therefore the type of cocoa powder used was the natural cocoa powder in order to neautralize the baking soda. If you have dutch cocoa powder you would need to include an acid such as sour cream, buttermilk etc to neautralize the baking soda.
Recipes that don’t specify the cocoa but only have baking powder in them then the type of cocoa to use is dutch processed. If you have natural cocoa, then substitute some of the baking powder for baking soda.
Most of recipes you’ll find can use either of the cocoa powders such as the chocolate cake recipes in this blog. This is because they use both baking powder and baking soda and this leavener combination works well for either cocoa powder type.
How to use cocoa powder in a recipe
Cocoa powder can be used in both baking and non-baking recipes. In simple non-baking recipes such as ice-cream, milkshakes, puddings it can be used to make a chocolate syrup for drizzling on these and baked desserts too.
In baking recipes such as chocolate cakes, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate cookies and brownies, it can be added together with the dry ingredients or blooming it. Blooming cocoa powder is mixing cocoa powder with a hot liquid such as hot boiling water, milk or buttermilk to dissolve it which helps bring out more chocolate flavour and incorporate the cocoa powder better in the baked good.
Tip: Sifting cocoa powder together with the dry ingredients is highly recommended as cocoa powder tends to be lumpy. Sifting helps break up these cocoa lumps making the cocoa powder mix better with the rest of the ingredients.
Cocoa powder vs chocolate
Chocolate and cocoa powder start with the same processing steps as above. Both are extracted from chocolate liquor. Chocolate, however, has both cocoa solids and cocoa butter in it while cocoa powder has cocoa solids with most or all cocoa butter has been removed. Therefore, chocolate has more fat in it relative to cocoa powder while cocoa powder has more cocoa solids in it relative to chocolate.
Some chocolate can be sweetened while some is completely unsweetened.
Substituting cocoa powder and chocolate
Storage of cocoa powder
Store your cocoa powder in a cool, dry place preferably your kitchen cupboard. Cocoa powder can keep for upto two years, well stored in an airtight container or bag.