Substituting cocoa

[vicki2]

I tend to buy a lot of good bar chocolate (semi, unsweetened, etc) from a chocolatier in a nearby town. When recipes call for cocoa, what is the equivalent measure in melted chocolate. I can't seem to get a conversion right.

[happy2bg33k]

It's harder to do it backwards but it's approximately 3 TB= 1 bar. When you're substituting cocoa for baker's chocolate you use 3TB cocoa + 1TB shortnening per bar of chocolate.

[DeBora4BobbyL]

I thought it was like 2 tablespoons. It is usually listed on the cocoa box. But, I think it would have to do with your preference for how rich you like your chocolate. I like mine pretty dark.

[cat lover]

I was concerned about doing this the backwards way from usual; usually people want to sub cocoa for baking chocolate so I went searching to find out. Here is what I found at OChef.com about it; hope it helps!


Substituting Baking Chocolate for Cocoa

Q. Can I substitute melted unsweetened chocolate for unsweetened cocoa powder?
A. Unsweetened chocolate is a mixture of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened cocoa powder starts out as unsweetened chocolate. Then the cocoa butter is forcibly removed, and the remaining solids are ground to a powder. So the difference between baking chocolate and cocoa is all that cocoa butter — generally as much as 55% of the baking chocolate.

When you substitute cocoa for unsweetened chocolate, you generally use 3 tablespoons of cocoa and 1 tablespoon of butter, oil, or shortening to replace 1 ounce of chocolate. Since you want to go in the opposite direction, you need to find a way to remove from your recipe the extra fat you are adding. For each ounce of unsweetened chocolate you use, omit 1 tablespoon of whatever fat is called for elsewhere in your recipe, if possible.

Depending on your recipe, you may also have to manage blending and mixing issues, as melted chocolate and cocoa do not necessarily have the same mixing properties at all ranges of temperature, but we're sure you can master that challenge.