Why does cocoa, instead of chocolate, make the fudgiest brownies?
Because you can replace the cocoa butter naturally present in a chocolate bar with dairy butter. The result is excellent, as long as you don’t think too hard about how much the brownies resemble chocolate-flavored pats of butter. What is Dutch-processed cocoa? Dutch-processed cocoa has been treated with an alkali compound, such as potash or baking soda, to raise its pH and make it darker in color. The process changes the flavor of cocoa to something more rounded, approachable, and — if taken too far — dull. The process was invented in the 19th century by the Dutch chocolatier Coenraad Johannes van Houten. Heavily Dutched cocoa is called “black cocoa” and is used to make Oreo cookies. You can order it from King Arthur Flour, but you probably don’t want to, because it has little flavor. You often read that Dutched cocoa is more soluble in liquids. I didn’t find this to be true, and in her book Bittersweet, chocolate expert Alice Medrich says it’s a myth. Dutched cocoa is a relative newco
