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Did I Use The Wrong Cocoa Powder For Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake?

Asked by bakinginthedeep. Answered on 26th May 2019

Full question

I love Nigella's recipes but the Old fashioned Chocolate cake one was not worth all the time and effort. The cake turned out very nice looking but didn’t feel or taste very chocolatey. Perhaps it was the cocoa I used - Nesquik? Or since the cocoa content is very low? Also the cake was not too dark, more like a brownish colour. I prefer richer darker chocolatey cakes.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake
Photo by James Merrell
Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake
By Nigella
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Our answer

Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake (from FEAST) is a popular chocolate layer cake with a chocolate frosting. The cake is made with 40g of cocoa powder to 200g flour, which is enough to give a good chocolate flavour without making the cake too dry.

However you do need to use 100% cocoa powder. Nesquik is a chocolate powder that is added to milk to make a chocolate drink. It contains sugar and other ingredients as well as cocoa, so it will not result in such a deep chocolate flavour. You may also like to try Nigella's Devil's Food Cake as an alternative. It is a more fudgy style chocolate cake that is slightly darker, but still needs to be made with pure cocoa powder.

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