Cocoa Powder

Produced by grinding cocoa beans and removing the cocoa butter, cocoa powder comes in varying degrees of colour ranging from a light brown to dark reddish colour depending on the pH of the powder. The pH is often made less acidic by using alkali; this produces the reddish colour in cocoa powder and is known as the Dutch process. Cocoa powder is unsweetened and is excellent in baked goods; in many recipes, 10 per cent of the flour content of a baked item can be replaced with cocoa powder. It is available in supermarkets, specialist cookery or ingredient stores, health food stores or online.