Baking emergency! Please help with a cocoa substitution.
I am baking a chocolate cake that calls for ¾ cup of unsweetened cocoa. Since I always have cocoa on hand, I didn’t buy any when planning to make this cake. Now it is Christmas Eve, the grocery store is closed, and the two mini-marts that are open don’t carry cocoa!
I do have one bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Can I substitute melted semi-sweet chocolate for the cocoa? How much, and do I need to alter other ingredients? This is the recipe if that helps.
The cake is for Christmas dessert tomorrow. Thanks in advance for any help and advice!
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16 Answers
Semi-sweet chocolate will make a fine replacement. Just use a little less sugar.
You can use it, but you will have to adjust both the fat and the sugar amounts in the recipe ingredients. I will look for a conversion table for you, but if one can’t be found, I think you will have to taste, taste, taste, so maybe you should add the eggs last.
½ bag chocolate chips = 9 tablespoons cocoa powder + 7 tablespoons sugar + 3 tablespoons butter
1 cup = 16 tablespoons so ¾ cup = 12 tablespoons
@PandoraBoxx I wish I were not maxed out on you. What a cool thing to know! Worth a lot of lurve.
If you need ¾ cocoa, then you need 1–⅓ cups chips, and you need to subtract 9 tablespoons sugar and 4 tablespoons butter.
I have a list of equivalencies. Check my math, @pdworkin. I know 16 tablespoons = 1 cup.
I would melt the chips, or you could food process them.
Hello Miss Austen. I see that your question has been answered already, so I don’t need to stress myself out looking up conversions. \I promise you that I would have if necessary. I clicked the link to your recipe, and bookmarked it. It looks really good! I hope your cake turns out well. Merry Christmas to you and Pandora box!
@PandoraBoxx Thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times over! I had tried to look up conversions, but math is not my strong point and trying to decide how to adjust the sugar and butter was killing me. You rock!
Damn! @PandoraBoxx has it goin on!
Ok, @PandoraBoxx Am I going to get rich and be able to move out of my camper (which you took so I have no place to live and it’s snowin and blowin like a banshee here) and eat Salmon instead of catfish in the next year???
Time for plan B…chop up some gummy bears throw them in the batter and bake. People will think it must be a fruit cake and that you have lost your mind and immediately lose their appetite for dessert. Problem solved!
@Val123 Don’t make me break out plan C!!
@Cruiser OK OK! Gummy bears fine! In fact….melt Gummy Bears and dip strawberries in them! Blech
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