sprinklefingers

dear lord, what is going on out there? planet cocoa must be in retrograde, either that or everyone’s had too much holiday baking to do…

…i have literally been asked 22 times since monday what the difference is between natural cocoa and dutch processed cocoa. you’ve all got cocoa on the brain!

at work we use natural cocoa in our (delicious) chocolate cake. it’s a bit more acidic than dutch processed cocoa, but with the right amount of alkali, that acidity is balanced out. whoa, science! because i am starting to feel a bit like my ninth grade chemistry teacher mr. horvath, (who once told me i was like “a ball in the tall weeds - lost,”) i’m going to turn this discussion over to the master of all things chocolate - david lebovitz. he’s a genius. and he has a blog that will make you so jealous you’ll want to crawl inside your own mouth. (now, if that’s not jealous, i don’t know what is. but, seriously, the guy is a pastry chef who lives in paris - the sweet life indeed.)

read all about natural cocoa and dutch processed cocoa here. and then poke around lebovitz’s blog a while. there’s a lot worth reading!