Ingredient Spotlight: Black Cocoa

"Will you use this?" My cousin Annette asked as she made her way out of her pantry.

I took the King Arthur Flour pouch in my hand and read the label.  Black Cocoa Powder.  

"Yeah, for sure, I'll find some way to use it" and it made it's way into my pantry. Eventually it made it's way into a chocolate cookie I had been making with some regularity and was having a little bit of a love affair with.  At that point, I had a notebook for my cookie baking as I was tinkering with my own recipes.  I had read that the cocoa was strong and truly not meant to be used on it's own.  I believed it, and I had looked up the cost online and wanted to make it last.  

I blended it with dutch process cocoa, I blended it with natural cocoa, eventually I blended all three.  I messed around with different ratios and eventually found a blend I LOVED and got this black cookie that I loved and obviously being a Bruins fan, I wanted to add gold to it.  I had NO idea that tinkering around with a fun cocoa my cousin had been hanging onto in her pantry would eventually lead to Top Shelf Cookies, but here we are.

This is one of my favorite ingredients we use.  It's chocolate and I love the way it looks in a cookie. It reminded me of Oreos, which are my favorite mass produced packaged cookie.  I always preferred the chocolately cookies to the creamy filling growing up.  So, when I had the chance to make almost a chewy soft oreo type tasting cookie, I went for it.  We use black cocoa in all of our chocolate cookies, some cookies use less black cocoa than others, that's part of the fun!

Where can you find black cocoa to experiment with?

King Arthur Baking Company

Some resources for baking tips with black cocoa powder?

The Kitchn

But, I definitely encourage you to just try stuff out.  You got a brownie recipe you love, sub in some (not all) of this for the cocoa and see what you find!

What are some of YOUR favorite baking ingredients