Chocolate cake is always a good idea. But does it matter whether you’re using real chocolate or the tinned powdery stuff that’s kept somewhere in the back of your pantry? First of all, the powdery stuff that tastes a lot like eating coffee straight from the jar is just as ‘real’ as the yummy stuff you’d happily eat a block of. Cocoa powder is one of the raw ingredients used in making chocolate. It’s made by roasting ground cacao beans at high temperatures. To make chocolate, you add cocoa powder to cocoa butter, additional fats and sugar. To achieve smooth, even chocolate, there are often other emulsifiers added as well. Milk chocolate will also have milk added as the main ingredient. Chocolate can vary in cocoa butter solids and other things. With cocoa, you’re getting the same product each time. As cocoa is a ‘raw’ chocolate ingredient, it also means you can better manipulate the flavor of your cake by adding sugar and fat to result in your desired texture and flavor. More fat will create a denser cake, more sugar will dilute the natural bitterness of cocoa. You can also experiment by using different fats and sugars to create your own unique flavor. Science aside, it really comes down to texture. A recipe using cocoa will usually be a lighter cake with a large crumb. Chocolate will result in a fudgier cake with a smaller crumb and a denser texture. Read more, HERE.