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Cocoa Butter: The Fat That Makes Chocolate Behave Like Chocolate
Cocoa butter is the natural fat in cacao—and a big reason chocolate melts the way it does. Here’s how it affects white chocolate, tempering, fat bloom, chocolate chips, and more.
For the Curious: Cocoa Powder Is More Complicated Than It Looks
Natural, Dutch-process, black, higher-fat, lower-fat—cocoa powder is far more variable than it looks. Here’s how processing changes flavor, mixing, baking behavior, and flavanols.
New to Feeding Yourself? Part 3
Part 3 adds eggs, tofu, canned tuna or chicken, cabbage, spinach, and roasted peppers to your beginner-cooking toolkit. Do a little prep, then mix and match them into easy sandwiches, noodle bowls, rice bowls, fried rice, and more.
What Does It Mean When Cocoa Powder Goes Dutch?
Natural and Dutch-process cocoa powder look similar, but they behave differently in baking. Here’s how acidity, flavor, color, and leavening affect which one to use.
Cacao, Beyond Chocolate
We usually think of cacao as chocolate. On a cacao farm in Ecuador, I discovered the sweet, lychee-like pulp and refreshing juice surrounding the seeds—and why using more of this overlooked fruit makes so much sense.
Cacao Nibs: Whole-Food-ish Chocolate
Cacao nibs are more than crunchy “healthy chocolate.” After roasting cacao in Ecuador, I finally started thinking of them for what they are: pieces of the cacao seed, with their cocoa butter, fiber, minerals and plant compounds still there.