Chocolate Instead Of Cocoa Powder

Asked by Bakedom. Answered on 31st October 2019

Full question

I quite liked the look of Nigella's Chocolate Banana Muffin recipe and am going to try it for the first time. But since I like dark chocolate so much, I wanted to know if it's alright to add melted dark chocolate instead of cocoa powder? If yes, then what should be the proportion of chocolate in the recipe. Many thanks.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

By Nigella

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Banana Muffins (from KITCHEN) are a great way to use up bananas that have been sitting in the fruit bowl and have become brown and soft. The mixture of banana and cocoa gives a soft, moist muffin with a good flavour. We would not change the cocoa powder for melted chocolate as this will likely diminish the chocolate flavour in the muffin. Cocoa powder is 100% cocoa solids so has a strong, dark chocolate flavour. Most dark chocolates are 60-70% cocoa solids, the rest being fat and sugar, and so will not contribute quite as much flavour. Substituting chocolate for cocoa can also change the texture of the muffins.

If you want to add a chocolate boost to the muffins then we suggest adding some dark chocolate chips to the mixture. Small/mini chocolate chips work best, or you could use dark chocolate chopped into small pieces. We would suggest using 100g/4 ounces and stirring the chips into the batter after you have added the flour mixture.