Baking soda and cocoa

[anika]

Hi! I've been reading a lot of threads on eGullet and have learned a lot from everyone. Thanks a lot! Finally signed up for an account to be able to post.

In Devil's Food cake, the reddish brown tint is supposed to be from the reaction of baking soda. And most DF cakes use soda and natural/unalkalized cocoa for the reaction. Now, my question is: is the color from the reaction of soda with the acidity of the natural cocoa specifically or would any acid reacting with soda in the presence of cocoa (natural or dutched) produce that color?

More practically speaking, if dutched cocoa replaced natural in a DF cake, can the same reddish color be achieved by adding extra acid for the soda?

I'd do a side-by-side comparison, but the whole question comes because natural cocoa is difficult to find where I live! So if anyone has experience or a theoretical answer, I'd really appreciate it!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Dutch process cocoa is alkaline, so I'm not sure that adding acid to the recipe would produce anything by way of colour reaction - if I recall my chemistry correctly you'd end up with a saltier tasting final product (due to a neutralization reaction between the soda and acid) but you wouldn't get the red-brown colour you're after. That comes from a particular reaction of untreated cacao, which is mildly acidic and which behaves very differently in recipes.

This said, I'd encourage you to give it a shot in your kitchen - scale your recipe back as far as possible (to 1 egg, usually), then try the Dutch process cacao with, say, the juice of a lime added at the butter-sugar stage. If it works without skewing the flavour of the cake, fab. If not, you don't have so many muffins/so much cake that it's a moral problem binning or composting it.

[andiesenji]

I use buttermilk in recipes that use Dutch process cocoa.

[anika]

>>>That comes from a particular reaction of untreated cacao, which is mildly acidic and which behaves very differently in recipes.

Thanks a lot Elizabeth and Society Donor (Terry?)!　Ｔｈａｔ　ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ　ａｎｓｗｅｒｓ　ｍｙ　ｑｕｅｓｔｉｏｎ。

Ｉ　ａｃｔｕａｌｌｙ　ｈａｖｅ　ｂｅｅｎ　ｕｓｉｎｇ　Ｄｕｔｃｈｅｄ／ａｌｋａｌｉｚｅｄ　ｉｎ　ａｌｌ　ｍｙ　ｃｈｏｃｏｌａｔｅ　ｃａｋｅｓ　ｓｉｎｃｅ　Ｉ　ｍｏｖｅｄ　ｈｅｒｅ but haven't achieved that red-brown color... what I've been doing is ｋｅｅｐｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｂａｋｉｎｇ　ｓｏｄａ　ｖｓ　ｂａｋｉｎｇ　ｐｏｗｄｅｒ　ｒａｔｉｏ　ｔｈｅ　ｓａｍｅ　as originally with natural cocoa ａｎｄ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｕｓｉｎｇ　ｓｏｕｒed／ｂｕｔｔｅｒｍｉｌｋ　ａｎｄ　ａｄｄｉｎｇ　the tiniest　ｂｉｔ　ｏｆ　ｄｉｓｓｏｌｖｅｄ　ｃｉｔｒｉｃ　ａｃｉｄ　（about the same acidity as lemon, but without the ｌｅｍｏｎｙ　ｆｌａｖｏｒ）。　　Ｔｈｅ　ｔｅｘｔｕｒｅ　ｃｏｍｅｓ　ｏｕｔ　ｐｒｅｔｔｙ　ｗｅｌｌ, but I've been settling for a dark brownie-brown color...

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Where is "here," if you don't mind my asking?

[anika]

India. Moved here a year ago. In my current city, cocoa is available only from bakery supply shops, not at the grocery/supermarket. And the supply store carries only "imported" (usually Malaysian) dutch/alkalized cocoa. I recently ordered "natural unalkalized" from a local grower&producer, but was incorrectly sent "premium low-fat alkalized" ... bah!

Have you been in Ecuador for long?

[Norm Matthews]

In response to the question

"Now, my question is: is the color from the reaction of soda with the acidity of the natural cocoa specifically or would any acid reacting with soda in the presence of cocoa (natural or dutched) produce that color? "

There is no acidity in Dutched cocoa powder so if there is any reaction to any acid in a recipe with it would not come from a reaction with that cocoa powder. It would have to come from a reaction to other acids in the recipe such as buttermilk.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

India. Moved here a year ago. In my current city, cocoa is available only from bakery supply shops, not at the grocery/supermarket. And the supply store carries only "imported" (usually Malaysian) dutch/alkalized cocoa. I recently ordered "natural unalkalized" from a local grower&producer, but was incorrectly sent "premium low-fat alkalized" ... bah!

Have you been in Ecuador for long?

Four years, and I'm not leaving any time soon. I asked because I'm in a country that produces some of the world's finest cacao, and even I had a difficult time finding natural unalkalized cocoa - I source mine from a bakery supply shop as well.