I recently viewed an episode of America's Test Kitchen that had a segment on Dutch cocoa powder. Beyond the taste factor the brand of cocoa powder heavily influences the *texture* of the final product.
It turns out that the powder's fat content basically determines this characteristic. More fat = softer texture. Less fat = harder texture. The fat content is not listed on the cocoa powder packages so ATK sent them all out to a lab for analysis.
Then they did their tests by baking cookies.
The cocoa powder rated the best (resulting in the softest cookies) was Droste from Holland. In second place was US domestic E. Guittard. In last place was Hershey's.
Depending on your desired texture you should choose your cocoa powder accordingly.
You can likely find this episode online via a judicious search of the Internet.
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It turns out that the powder's fat content basically determines this characteristic. More fat = softer texture. Less fat = harder texture. The fat content is not listed on the cocoa powder packages so ATK sent them all out to a lab for analysis.
Then they did their tests by baking cookies.
The cocoa powder rated the best (resulting in the softest cookies) was Droste from Holland. In second place was US domestic E. Guittard. In last place was Hershey's.
Depending on your desired texture you should choose your cocoa powder accordingly.
You can likely find this episode online via a judicious search of the Internet.