Can you use instant hot choc in a recipe instead of cocoa?

jellyhead

This will seem a daft question to most of you I'm sure, but we've only ever made cakes/muffins/bicuits with choc chips before, we've never made chocolate cakes.

Nursery wants donations of choc cakes etc. for the fun day and my 3 year old has found a recipe. We have some choc buttons so we could just make ordinary muffins with choc chips in, but he has his heart set on making the brown ones which actually contain cocoa.

Our local shop only sells instant hot choc - could we use that or would everything go horrible wrong? The ingredients for the instant says 23% cocoa and the rest is skimmed milk/whey etc so I am wondering if we can use that, or if a trip to the supermarket is needed before we start baking?

galvanizersbaby

jellyhead wrote: »

This will seem a daft question to most of you I'm sure, but we've only ever made cakes/muffins/bicuits with choc chips before, we've never made chocolate cakes.

Nursery wants donations of choc cakes etc. for the fun day and my 3 year old has found a recipe. We have some choc buttons so we could just make ordinary muffins with choc chips in, but he has his heart set on making the brown ones which actually contain cocoa.

Our local shop only sells instant hot choc - could we use that or would everything go horrible wrong? The ingredients for the instant says 23% cocoa and the rest is skimmed milk/whey etc so I am wondering if we can use that, or if a trip to the supermarket is needed before we start baking?

This is the sort of question I would ask Jellyhead
I have no idea but if it was me I would go for it and use the instant hot choc (the cakes might not be as chocolatey as if you used cocoa powder though!
I will await responses from other posters who are better bakers than I as this is something I've wondered about!

jellyhead

I wondered if the milk and whey and whatnot might interfere with whatever clever stuff goes on to make the cakes rise and set (I'm not very scientific!).

We tried to make a brownie recipe last week and for some reason it didn't set and was very fatty (my eldest and I ate the crust!).

I think my 3 year old might want proper choc chips rather than broken buttons, so perhaps we could do a trial run with what we have, and then I could go shopping for proper cocoa powder and some choc chips while he's in nursery tomorrow

Emmzi

you would need to reduce amount of sugar as the choc is presweetened.

Personally I'd buy cocoa as it'll taste weak. Or make coffee cake instead, or use instanat coffee and choc drink mix and call it mocha.

Nicki

I'd ask over on oldstyle if I were you. But speaking from experience, no you can't! Instant hot choc (and even proper drinking choc) isn't strong enough to leave any flavour behind, unlike cocoa powder. Your cakes would be bland, and a rather unpleasant colour too!

shell_girl

Not a daft question at all- at least you are sensible enough to ask before doing it! I think the majority of us saying 'Don't do it!' are speaking from our own experience... :rotfl:

frivolous_fay

I'm guessing a fair proportion of the drinking choc would dissolve (the sugar part, probably) whereas the cocoa wouldn't (I have a recipe that uses cocoa in place of flour)

McKneff

No, dont use hot chocolate, they wont taste chocolatey at all and you will waste your money. use proper cocoa, Rowntrees is best.

jellyhead

Thanks everyone! Eldest biked over to a different shop, because we didn't have enough butter anyhow and has come back with bournville cocoa which doesn't contain sugar, it says ideal for baking. He also bought some 'proper' choc chips because 'broken buttons are rubbish, Mum!'

PolishBigSpender

I don't think you can - chocolate is sweetened, cocoa (the kind you use for baking) is not.

McKneff

and Bournville Cocoa is fine, its just that i always buy Rowntrees.