Need exchange of chocolate to cocoa powder

I'm not sure about sweetened cocoa powder, but 3 tbsp regular cocoa powder + 1 tbsp shortening = 1 square unsweetened baking chocolate.

This is a complex question and would depend on how sweet the chocolate you had to start with was, how much sugar was in your "sweetened cocoa powder", and whether the cocoa was high-fat or low-fat. However, I can give you the data for straight unsweetened chocolate vs. cocoa, and then some examples.

Straight unsweetened (chocolate liquor) is about 50% cocoa butter, 50% defatted cocoa solids. The defatted cocoa solids are what give chocolate most of its taste. Meanwhile, unsweetened cocoa has 2 main variants, high- fat, with about 24% fat, and low-fat, with about 9%. So it's either 76% or

91% defatted cocoa solids. Therefore, speaking strictly from a flavour intensity standpoint, the proper ratios are either 2/3 (2 parts cocoa substitutes for 3 parts chocolate) or 5/9.

Once you add sugar, things become more complicated. Most quality sweetened chocolates, usually called "couverture" have something in the range of 40-

45% cocoa butter. A chocolate should also list its cocoa solids percentage, the total percentage of both defatted cocoa and cocoa butter. Finally, there's the sugar percentage. If you look in the industry, you'll see things like "60/40/40" which means 60% cocoa solids, 40% fat, 40% sugar. It's rare that you'll find this sort of useful labelling in retail, but commonly you'll see the cocoa solids percentage listed, which gives you a good start, because the variability of cocoa butter is only in a narrow window, and with that you can make a reasonable guess. If you assume that a chocolate has about 40% cocoa butter, which will be good enough most of the time, then a chocolate with 70% cocoa solids thus has 30% defatted cocoa solids. You simply subtract 40 from the claimed cocoa solids percentage. When it's a low percentage (below about 55%), however, you need to reduce your estimate of the amount of cocoa butter, generally to somewhere around 35%. (Side note: this is why sweet dark chocolate almost always seems a bit dry and grainy. Lower cocoa butter makes for a rougher, drier texture). Armed with all these figures, the straight cocoa substitution ratio should be 91 or 76 divided by the amount of defatted cocoa solids you estimated.

The sugar substitution, however, is a breeze, if you've got the cocoa solids percent: simply subtract that figure from 100, and the resulting number gives the ratio: it's (number/100) times the amount of chocolate the recipe called for.

However, you can't just eliminate all that fat in a recipe that assumed you had it. And here's where things become *really* complicated. You have to substitute some other fat for the cocoa butter. Most of the time this is going to be unsalted butter. But dairy butter has different properties than cocoa butter. For instance cookies made with chocolate will be more fudgy, those with butter crispy. Cakes with butter are dense and rich; those with cocoa butter lean towards a silkier, smoother texture. So expect your results to be different. Even using the closest direct fat substitute, palm kernel oil, doesn't yield quite the same texture as cocoa butter. Furthermore, the calculation of the amount needed is even more complex. You need first to multiply the amount of chocolate your recipe called for by

40% (0.4) for sweetened chocolate, 50%(0.5) for unsweetened. Then you need to multiply the amount of cocoa you substituted by either 9% (0.09) or 24% (0.24). Then you subtract the figure you just found from the one you got for the chocolate, and this gives you approximately the amount of butter you need to add. If you want to be *really* technical, you actually need to multiply the figure you found by 1.25 for butter, to allow for the fact that butter has some water and other non-fat constituents.

Thoroughly confused at this point? Here's a couple of examples. Let's say you had a cake that called for 5 oz semisweet chocolate. Meanwhile, your chocolate claims 60% cocoa solids. You can then safely assume it's a "60/40". Fat percentage and sugar percentage are both 40%. So, you need

5*0.4 = 2 oz sugar. Imagine that your cocoa on hand has 24% fat. The amount of cocoa, then, that you need is ((60-40)/76*5) = (5/19)*5 = 1.3 oz (close enough to 1 1/3 oz). And the amount of butter is ((0.4*5)-(0.24*1.3))*1.25 = 2.11 oz ( approximately 4 tbsp and a tsp)

Or imagine a mousse that asked for 8 oz bittersweet chocolate. In this case, take that the chocolate you were using had 70% cocoa solids. Sugar percentage is 30%, fat percentage 40%. Using the same 24% cocoa, you'd then need (30/76)*8 = 15/38*8. 15/38 is virtually identical to 0.4, so the amount of cocoa is 3.2 oz. Sugar is 0.3*8 = 2.4 oz, and butter (which should work OK in this as long as you cream it well with the sugar) is ((0.4*8)-(0.24*3.2))*1.25 = 3 oz (3.04, to be exact)

If you were to try to substitute with pre-sweetened cocoa, you'd have to know the percent of sugar the manufacturer had added. I don't know of a manufacturer who states this on the label, so it's essentially impossible use pre-sweetened cocoa to substitute. I don't recommend it.

Without your recipe, it's hard to draw exact conclusions. But before trying to substitute cocoa, one of the following 2 modifications will probably work better:

1) Melt your chocolate instead of chopping it. Chopped chocolate added as is rarely melts completely in an oven. Even if it does, it doesn't mix into surrounding stuff This is why Ruth Wakefield's attempt to make chocolate cookies with chocolate chunks backfired so spectacularly, to our collective eternal gratitude. 2) If the recipe includes nothing but chocolate and nuts, and the idea is to use the chocolate as a "binder", sort of like the function of cement in concrete, try grating it. Grated chocolate melts much more evenly and quickly than chopped chocolate, and the end product will be more uniform. Even in this case, however, I'd consider melting and mixing the best option.

If you're determined to press on with cocoa, substituting butter, sugar, and cocoa will probably work at least passably. But expect it to be a little different, and there's always the chance that it will fail miserably if the recipe absolutely counts on the unique properties of cocoa butter.

Alex,

Wow, college level chocolate dynamics. Thanks for the info. I'm including the recipe here. As you can see, chunks are added. I'm really trying to achieve more of a flaky, Devils food type texture. The Hazelnut flour I have is indeed flour, not the meal everyone else has. A place in Oregon sells it to me. It's light and fluffy.

Hazelnut Chocolate Torte:

1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan 1 cup granulated sugar, plus more for pan 2 1/2 cups hazelnut flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder 6 large egg whites 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped Confectioner' sugar, for dusting

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch spring form pan. Dust with granulated sugar, tapping out excess. Set aside. Sift together hazelnut flour and cocoa powder; set aside. In a small saucepan, combine butter and orange zest over medium-low heat. Melt butter. Remove from heat, and cool in saucepan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. With machine running, add granulated sugar in a slow, steady stream, beating until fully incorporated and stiff glossy peaks form.

Gradually add hazelnut mixture, gently but thoroughly folding it into egg whites with a rubber spatula until fully combined. Mix about a 1/2 cup of hazelnut meringue into melted butter. Fold butter mixture into remaining meringue.

Fold in chopped chocolate. Pour batter into prepared pan, and smooth top. Bake until firm to the touch, about 50 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Release spring form pan, and allow cake to cool completely. Dust top with confectioners' sugar just before serving.

Yield: 1 (8-inch) round cake Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 50 minutes Difficulty: Medium

Yes, I know the stuff. A farm here in Washington sells it as well. Looking at the recipe, I think the idea of it was to have the chocolate not mix in but rather stay like chocolate chips. If you look at the preparation, you're folding dry, fluffy ingredients into beaten egg white, creating a fluffy, low-density mixture a bit like angel food cake. This will make it even less likely that high-density chocolate chunks will blend at all.

I think the problem, if you're looking to achieve a Devil's food cake texture, is that you need to dump this recipe altogether and find a new one. This one isn't designed for the type of texture you have in mind, and trying to modify it to make it work is the wrong approach, kind of like trying to convert a lawnmower engine into a chain saw. Devil's food cake is basically a standard butter cake designed around cocoa. So you need to start from a recipe that was designed at least along the same lines as a butter cake from a standpoint of intended result in texture and density.

I can't help but ask: Are you trying to solve a gluten intolerance? I note that your recipe doesn't include flour, and if you're trying to make a Devil's food cake, why not simply find a good recipe for it and make it? It's not necessarily easy to substitute for flour if you must stay away from it altogether and get the same texture you wanted. If you are stuck with an intolerance, you should look up sites and recipes designed to adapt flour recipes to nonflour ingredients.

If you just like the hazelnutty flavour, then start with a good Devil's food cake recipe, and substitute some portion of the flour with hazelnut flour, until you're satisfied with the tradeoff between intensity of flavour and cohesion of the cake (many recipes designed for flour will fall apart if you take *all* the flour out).