Love chocolaty bakes? You'll want the best cocoa powder to give these recipes their signature flavor. Find out which brands our Test Kitchen loves most.
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There are ingredients in your pantry you want to pay a little extra attention to. Baking extras that add big flavor to your recipes are definitely worthy of some extra consideration. Among these important ingredients: cocoa powder.
A great cocoa powder can make your favorite chocolate desserts taste extra rich and make them all the more irresistible. But is the cocoa in your cupboard doing your recipes justice?
To find out which brands will really make these cocoa-forward recipes sing, our Test Kitchen—a squad stacked with pro bakers—sampled 10 brands in a blind test. Each baker kept these qualities in mind as they sipped their cocoa and inspected their samples:
After sipping, sampling and baking, our experts chose four brands worthy of being called Test Kitchen-Preferred.
You don’t have to go to great lengths to find a great cocoa powder for your chocolaty bakes. Hershey’s Cocoa can be found at practically every supermarket, big-box store and mom-and-pop grocer, and our Test Kitchen recommends that you make it a staple in your pantry.
Reader Sue from Connecticut explains that this cocoa has been a constant in her kitchen for years: “Its quality is consistent and I can rely on the same flavor and ease of use in recipes.”
And our Test Kitchen feels the same way. While we love to experiment with different options, Hershey’s is our kitchen’s standard. With subtle natural sweetness and the right counterbalance of bitter cocoa, our team can rely on this brand to give the right flavor to our best cocoa-centric recipes like Sandy’s Chocolate Cake.
If you’re super serious about your chocolate, you’ll want to spend a little extra on this pantry goody. For a next-level cocoa powder, our Test Kitchen recommends Valrhona Pure Cocoa Powder.
Valrhona is a favorite among our pro bakers for its amazing texture. This cocoa is velvety and has a nearly creamy mouthfeel when stirred into hot chocolate. This deep-hued cocoa also has a terrific complexity of flavor. It’s not just plain ol’ chocolate—it’s chocolate that has subtle dark cocoa notes and some brightness that makes your tastebuds take notice.
While cocoa powder is neither milk nor dark chocolate, it doesn’t mean it can’t have characteristics of these common types of chocolate. If you fancy yourself a dark chocolate fanatic, you’ll want to keep Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa Powder stocked in your kitchen.
In the test, Ghirardelli gave our bakers distinct dark chocolate notes without being overly bitter or sweet. This brand manages to keep these flavor profiles balanced. Many Taste of Home community members agree. “Ghirardelli has a rich, deep chocolate flavor which enhances the chocolate cakes I love to bake,” says Beth, a reader from Pennsylvania.
Color-wise, this cocoa is darker than its competitors so your cakes and brownies will turn out deeper and darker looking. After all, what says chocolate more than a super fudgy cake?
While regular cocoa powder is good for most baking recipes, there are some instances where you need to use Dutch-process cocoa (sometimes called Dutched cocoa or alkalized cocoa). If you’ve got a recipe that calls for Dutch cocoa, , like this Brooklyn Blackout Cake, our Test Kitchen recommends Guittard Red Dutch-Process Cocoa Powder.
Guittard Dutch cocoa is exceptionally smooth and milder than its traditional counterparts—exactly what our Test Kitchen wants in an alkalized cocoa powder. This brand had a great mellow chocolate flavor with a warm aftertaste. This is just the option you need for any recipe that requires this type of cocoa.
Whatever cocoa powder you choose to fill your baking cupboard with, there’s just one simple guideline to follow: store cocoa in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. That’s it! If your cocoa doesn’t come in a container with a tight-fitting lid, invest in some good baking storage.
Fortunately, cocoa has a very long shelf life. If stored properly, it’s good for about three years. So even if cocoa isn’t a regular player in your recipes, you have a long time to use that container.
What happens if your cocoa is expired? Don’t worry: It’s actually OK to use expired cocoa powder. The flavor won’t be as pronounced but it is safe to use (unless it smells off or looks strange).
Our Test Kitchen is comprised of experts and bakers who have years of experience working in professional kitchens and reviewing products. For this article, they sampled ten cocoa powder brands in a blind test. They paid particular attention to the color, flavor and price. Of the ten cocoa powders they tested, only four made our list of the best cocoa powder brands.
