Cacao nibs, cocoa and everyday chocolate

Everything chocolate starts as the seed of the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, which grows in a narrow tropical band around the equator. The seeds, which everyone calls beans, are scooped out of large pods, fermented in heaps or boxes for several days, dried, and usually roasted. What happens next decides whether you end up with nibs, cocoa powder, cocoa butter or a bar of chocolate.

From bean to shelf

Nibs are the beans cracked into pieces with the papery shells winnowed away. That is all. They taste of strong, bitter, slightly fruity chocolate, and they stay crunchy no matter what you do to them.

Cocoa mass, also called cocoa liquor, is nibs ground until the fat in them melts into a thick paste. It contains everything in the bean.

Cocoa butter and cocoa powder come from pressing that mass. The fat runs out as cocoa butter. The dry cake left behind is ground into cocoa powder. So cocoa powder is the bean with much of its fat removed.

Chocolate is cocoa mass, usually with extra cocoa butter, sugar and sometimes milk, refined until smooth and tempered so it snaps.

You will see “cacao” on some packets and “cocoa” on others. On New Zealand shelves the words are not used consistently. “Cacao” is often used for products made from unroasted or lightly processed beans, and for a higher price, but there is no standard you can rely on. Read the ingredient list instead.

The fat and sugar differences

This is where the forms really part ways. Figures from the United States Department of Agriculture’s food composition tables give a useful rough picture per 100 g:

Product	Fat	Sugars	How it is used
Unsweetened cocoa powder	about 14 g	about 2 g	a tablespoon or two in a recipe
Dark chocolate, 70 to 85%	about 43 g	about 24 g	a square or two
Cocoa nibs	high, close to the whole bean	very little unless coated	a spoonful for crunch

Two things stand out. Unsweetened cocoa powder is low in both fat and sugar, because the fat has been pressed out and nothing sweet has been added. And dark chocolate, even at a high percentage, is still roughly a quarter sugar and over 40 percent fat. That is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to know what a square is.

The percentage on a dark bar refers to the cocoa content: cocoa mass plus any added cocoa butter. Food labels in New Zealand have to show the percentage of a food’s characterising ingredients or components, and Food Standards Australia New Zealand uses the cocoa solids in chocolate as its own example. A 70 percent bar is 70 percent cocoa and about 30 percent everything else, most of which is sugar. A milk chocolate bar has far less cocoa and far more sugar and milk.

Drinking chocolate is not cocoa

Drinking chocolate and hot chocolate powders are blends. Many list sugar as their first ingredient, which under the labelling rules means there is more sugar than anything else in the tin. Unsweetened cocoa powder, by contrast, is a single ingredient.

If you like a hot chocolate, a heaped teaspoon of plain cocoa whisked into hot milk with as much or as little sugar as you choose puts you in charge of the sweetness. Whisk the cocoa into a splash of cold milk first so it does not clump.

Baking swaps that work

Natural vs Dutch-process cocoa. Natural cocoa is acidic. Dutch-process, or alkalised, cocoa has been treated to reduce that acidity, which makes it darker and milder. The difference matters in recipes that rely on baking soda, because soda needs an acid to react with. If an older recipe uses baking soda and cocoa as the main leavening, it was probably written for natural cocoa, and Dutch-process may give you a flat, dense cake. Recipes using baking powder are more forgiving.

Cocoa for melted chocolate. You can stand in for 30 g of melted dark chocolate with about three tablespoons of cocoa plus one tablespoon of a neutral oil or melted butter, and adjust the sugar to taste. It works in brownies and cakes. It does not work for coating or dipping.

Nibs for chocolate chips. Nibs do not melt and are not sweet, so a straight swap gives a bitter, crunchy cookie. Half chips and half nibs is a better place to start. Nibs are lovely scattered over yoghurt, porridge or a banana loaf before baking.

Cocoa in savoury cooking. A teaspoon of cocoa in a beef and bean chilli or a slow-cooked lamb shoulder adds depth without tasting of chocolate. This is one of the best uses for the tin at the back of the cupboard.

Storing it

Keep cocoa powder sealed, cool and dry, away from the stove, where steam makes it clump. Chocolate prefers a cool cupboard to the fridge; the fridge can draw sugar to the surface as a white bloom. Bloom is harmless and melts out in baking. Nibs keep well in a jar. All of them can attract pantry moths if left open.

A normal portion

A square or two of dark chocolate, a tablespoon of cocoa in a drink or a tablespoon of nibs over breakfast is a normal amount for most people. The Ministry for Primary Industries food safety pages cover storage and labelling questions if you have them. The rest is taste: buy the cocoa or chocolate you enjoy, and enjoy it in amounts that fit the rest of your day.

General information only — not medical or dietary advice. For advice about your own diet, see your GP or a NZ-registered dietitian.