Percentage of chocolate?
 

Anybody know how I can determine the cocoa percentage in plain old unsweetened cocoa powder from the grocery store? I mean, as far as I can tell, it's 100% straight from the can. If I mix it with coconut oil to make chocolate treats, does the amount of coconut oil determine the % of chocolate in the resulting "chocolates"? Is it by weight or volume?

hmmm.....i'm curious to know correct answer now, too.
I guess i always thought of it as 100%, like unsweetened baking bar. I think of 85% as, the amount replaced with sugar?

I'm pretty sure that it's the amount replaced with anything else, as Barb suggested. Otherwise, how could the bars sweetened with stevia be 70% or less? No sugar, and the volume of stevia is less than the volume of sugar, too.

100% unless they add something else.

One interesting thing I just heard about plain cocoa on a program on NPR...most cocoa powders have been partially or substantially defatted. The cooking expert said for the best results for recipes using cocoa powder you want a premium cocoa powder which is more likely to be full fat.

How can you tell? Well apparently most cocoas all use a standard serving size, so just look at the nutritional label. The defatted brands will say .5g of fat per serving. The premium brands will be 1g of fat per serving.

I was low on cocoa so took that in mind when I checked and sure enough most of what I found in supermarkets was .5g. In fact the only brand that wasn't was Ghirardelli, so that's what I bought though I'm sure premium brands are available online.

Well, Merpig, that is interesting information. I always assumed that when they made powder out of cacao, that meant taking out ALL the oil that made it, well, stick together in the first place. :lol: I'll bet the Ghirardelli tastes better from the get go. I'll look at the labels next time in the market.

How can you leave in the fat and have it still be a powder that isn't a sticky gooey mess? I wonder if the difference between .5 and 1 is perhaps just a matter of rounding.

I would imagine cocoa powder is similar to peanut flour. If you don't de-fat peanut flour, you have peanut butter.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/how-chocolate-is-made4.htm

There is a taste difference in cocoa, but I think it is due to processing (roasting, dutching, etc).