An integral part of baking is working with cocoa powder. Anything that requires chocolate flavouring entails at least a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder. But there is a lot of confusion here. Let’s lay out all the details, a bit of science and technique today.

Here’s the breakdown:

How is cocoa powder made:

Cacao beans are picked, fermented, dried, roasted and cracked. The nibs are ground in into a chocolate liquor or cocoa mass. This liquor is then pressed in a machine and for cocoa butter...