Coco Powder Vs Baking Chocolate? Chocolate Equivalents For Recipe Substitution

Chocolate might be one of the most MUSHROOM CHOCOLATE BARS love flavors on the planet. It is not just a candy, a flavoring. Chocolate is a substance that has a power over people. It can turn a bad mood, soothe tempers, and encourage romance. Although a native to the Central and South Americas, the Cocoa tree is now found all around the equator. It is a fruit of the tree that has a whitish flesh and purple hued seeds which, when dried, become what we know commonly as the coco bean.

There are three main varieties of the cocoa tree, the Forastero, the Criollo, and the Trinitario. If you are eating a chocolate bar today, the bean for that bar probably came from a Forastero Cocoa tree. Ninety percent of the chocolate production in the world today does. The finest chocolates however come from the Criollo tree beans. Now there’s a bit of trivia to impress your chocolate loving friends with. Here is another. Chocolate was an American invention and in the 1500’s it was, literally, as good as gold and was used by native Americans as currency.

Although most believe that the Aztecs were the first to use chocolate, there is evidence that it was used by the ancient Maya as early as 500a.d.= Enough of the trivia lesson, you came for chocolate substitutions. Here you go. Yes, you can, usually, successfully interchange a powdered form of coco with a bar form. There are a few things to consider however.

All forms of bar chocolate are a mixture of coco powder,fat, and unless you are using unsweetened baking chocolate, sugar. Many varieties also contain a quantity of milk.. If you have ever left a bar of chocolate on the counter and then put it in the fridge to harden back up, you may have noticed that there appears to be a gray-white film on it. that is the fat that has come to the surface. The bar is still perfectly good to eat or use in cooking. The practice of substituting coco powder for bar forms of chocolate, therefore, is not only perfectly acceptable, it is often desirable.

Coco powder is often a better choice for certain applications. Making hot cocoa for example, in cakes without butter like angel food,or often when making a chocolate variety of cookie. Bar varieties like bakers chocolate are better suited to use in butter based cakes, sauces and puddings like a chocolate mouse.