The Best Cocoa Powder

Cocoa powder starts with cacao pods, the fruit of the tropical evergreen tree Theobroma cacao. The bulk of the world’s cocoa is grown in West Africa, with South America, and Southeast Asia producing most of the remainder. Each pod contains between 20 and 50 beans (also called seeds). The beans generally taste bitter and are surrounded by a fruity-tasting, milky-white pulp, according to Gregory Ziegler, chocolate expert and professor emeritus of food science at Penn State University. The beans are fermented and then either roasted whole and then shelled to yield nibs, or they’re shelled and roasted as nibs (small pieces of crushed bean). Next, the nibs are ground into a paste called chocolate liquor, a mix of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Chocolate liquor can be used as is in candy and chocolate, or it can be pressed to remove most of the fat (in the form of cocoa butter); the remaining solids are finely ground to make cocoa powder.

In the 19th century, a Dutch chemist and chocolatier named Coenraad Van Houten developed an optional step known as Dutching (also called Dutch processing or alkalizing). Chocolate is naturally slightly acidic. Treating cocoa powder with an alkalizing agent (usually potassium carbonate or sodium carbonate) neutralizes the acid. Natural, untreated cocoa powder is usually sandy brown with a reddish tint and tastes bright and fruity. When we baked cake and cookies with natural cocoa powders, tasters picked up on “cherry” notes. Dutch processing darkens the color to velvety brown or near-black and mellows the cocoa’s more astringent notes, so deeper notes come to the forefront. Dutched cocoa is often the preferred option for professional bakers. Daisy Chow of Breadboard Bakery in Arlington, Massachusetts, chooses Dutched cocoa for the cakes and brownies she makes in the bakery. While she values it for its smooth chocolate flavor, she also loves the rich, dark color it contributes to baked goods. In our tastings, Dutched cocoa produced cakes and cookies that tasted “earthier” and more like “dark chocolate.”

Dutched and natural cocoa powders can have varying impacts on the final product, and you’ll see both styles used in our recipes. Because natural cocoa powder is acidic, it’s often used in recipes with baking soda, which requires acidic ingredients to produce a chemical reaction for leavening. In testing, cakes made with natural cocoa powder were a touch loftier and airier. Dutched cocoa powder is not acidic, so it’s often used in recipes that use baking powder as their leavening agent. Cookies and cakes with Dutched cocoa turned out a little bit more flat and fudgy. 

For best results, you should use the type of cocoa powder called for in the recipe. If the recipe doesn’t specify, either one will work. Both Dutched and natural cocoa powders were rated highly in our tastings, even when we tried them with recipes calling for the opposite style. Our tasters appreciated the bright and fruity notes of the natural powders, balanced by a touch of bitterness. They also enjoyed how the Dutched powders produced slightly more-moist baked goods with a deep, earthy flavor.

Fat content was a significant predictor in our rankings. When the cocoa liquor is pressed, some cocoa butter remains with the solids. Cocoa powders are generally classified as low-fat (around 10 percent fat) or high-fat (22–24 percent fat).

Baking with a low-fat cocoa powder means risking dry baked goods. Fiber and starch are present in all chocolate and cocoa powder. The less fat a cocoa powder has, the more of these absorbent carbohydrates it contains, explained our senior science research editor, Paul Adams. Combined, fiber and starch (when cooked) are able to soak up several times their own weight in moisture. This effect will be more significant in recipes with less butter or oil. Cocoa powders with lower fat levels ended up at the bottom of our rankings; baked goods made with them tended to be more “dry” and “crumbly.”

• What to Look for: More than 0.5 grams fat per 5-gram serving
• What to Avoid: 0.5 grams or less fat per 5-gram serving.

Our tasters liked the four top-performing cocoa powders almost equally. For natural cocoa powders, we loved Ghirardelli Premium Baking 100% Cocoa Powder and Guittard Organic Natural Cocoa Powder. Ghirardelli Premium Baking 100% Cocoa Dutch-Process and Guittard Cocoa Rouge Cocoa Powder were our favorite Dutched cocoa powders. One thing these powders had in common was that they were all high in fat—and therefore lower in fiber and starch—than some lower-performing products in our lineup. At the time of testing, the Ghirardelli cocoa powders were slightly less expensive, earning them our overall top spots.