Cocoa vs chocolate: where does your chocolate cake reside? (2024)

Chocolate cake is always a good idea. But does it matter whether you're using real chocolate or the tinned powdery stuff that's kept somewhere in the back of your pantry?

Cocoa powder is one of the raw ingredients used in making chocolate. It's made by roasting ground cacao beans at high temperatures. To make chocolate, you add cocoa powder to cocoa butter, additional fats and sugar. To achieve smooth, even chocolate, there are often other emulsifiers added as well. Milk chocolate will also have milk added as the main ingredient.

"When you add cocoa powder to a cake, you're essentially adding a gluten-free flavouring that has similar baking qualities to cornflour, but it's got that beautiful flavour to it," says the creator of

and all-round baking guru

.

Anneka likes it because as a raw ingredient, you know exactly what you're putting into your

every time. "Chocolate can vary in cocoa butter solids and other things," she explains. "With cocoa, you're getting the same product each time."

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As cocoa is a 'raw' chocolate ingredient, it also means you can better manipulate the flavour of your cake by adding sugar and fat to result in your desired texture and flavour. More fat will create a denser cake, more sugar will dilute the natural bitterness of cocoa. You can also experiment by using different fats and sugars to create your own unique flavour.

It's kind of like a brownie," says Anneka. "Do you like a cakey brownie or a fudgy brownie?

"They both give that lovely chocolate flavour, but they do each adds something quite different to a chocolate cake," she notes. "I quite often use them both because I want the texture of the chocolate, with the more intense flavour that you can get by adding extra cocoa to your recipe without added fat and sugar that comes with adding the chocolate itself."

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For

, pâtissierand much-loved chocolate queen, a cake made from good quality cocoa powder beats chocolate. "By adding cocoa powder you get a great chocolate flavour without sugar, which you usually already have in a chocolate cake recipe," she explains.

Her tip for what makes a 'good quality' cocoa? "Use a Dutch-processed cocoa powder with 22 percent fat," she advises. "A Dutch-processed cocoa is alkaline on the pH scale, which will tenderise your cake texture and give you a great hit of chocolate flavour."

Science aside, it really comes down to texture. A recipe using cocoa will usually be a lighter cake with a large crumb.Chocolate will result in a fudgier cake with a smaller crumb and a denser texture. "You don't want to use chocolate in a sponge, it will weigh down your texture," cautions Anneka.

"It's kind of like a brownie," says Anneka. "Do you like a cakey brownie or a fudgy brownie?"

Most of us would say we like both, but for the record, cocoa will give you a cakier brownie and chocolate a fudgier result. That's not to say you won't get a fudgy cake using cocoa alone (exhibit A:

), but when you're starting out on your chocolate cake mixing journey, it's a solid place to start.

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Anneka has a tip for brownies and another recipe where you do want to use chocolate: mud cake.

"To intensify the flavour, add some cocoa powder as well," she says.

For the muddiest mud cake, be sure to use good-quality dark chocolate (not compound cooking chocolate, which is made with vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter) with a high cocoa mass. Then substitute about a quarter cup of the flour in the recipe with cocoa powder.