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I'm experimenting with brownie recipes, and I wanted to consult a canonical one to see what people generally prefer. Reading the ingredients, they use natural cocoa, dutch-processed cocoa, and baking soda:

sugar, enriched bleached flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), semi-sweet chocolate chips (sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, soy lecithin [emulsifier], vanilla extract), cocoa, soybean oil, cocoa (processed with alkali), bittersweet chocolate chips (unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin [emulsifier], vanilla extract), salt, artificial flavor, baking soda

Why would you use both natural and dutch? Is the baking soda to neutralize the acidity in the natural cocoa, is it a leavening agent, or both? I know some brownies are slightly leavened. If it's just to neutralize the acidity, why use natural cocoa at all, or could it still act to balance the dutch processed cocoa flavor?

Eddie Miller
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I use both for complexity of flavor, adding the right color, and yes, leavening plays a part. The Alkalizing process that dutch-processed cocoa goes through makes it that baking soda won't work as well. The baking soda needs acid to activate and create carbon dioxide to make the bubbles that make it rise. Check out this National Library of Medicine article about cocoa powders that goes deeper into the science. Personally, I like the dark chocolately look of dutch-processed, but natural has more of fruity, acidic taste that says "chocolate". Long story short, you could use all natural cocoa with baking soda, but if you want the depth of color and another flavor dimension, you have to use dutch-processed with natural.

DivaDeveloper
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