Skip to content

Cacao Paste substitute

Best substitute

Unsweetened baking chocolate (100 percent bars)

Use the same amount by weight as the cacao paste you are replacing

Best for bean-to-bar chocolate making

Close match

The short answer will save you a trip: cacao paste is 100 percent unsweetened chocolate, so a bar of unsweetened baking chocolate is the same ingredient and substitutes 1:1 by weight with no adjustment. The word liquor confuses everybody and it should not, because it refers to the fact that the paste flows when melted; there is no alcohol in it at all. If you have no unsweetened chocolate, an 85 to 90 percent dark bar goes in 1:1 by weight if you cut the recipe's sugar by about 2 teaspoons per ounce, since the bar is already sweetened. Failing that, rebuild it: 3 tablespoons cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon melted cocoa butter replaces 1 ounce of cacao paste almost exactly, and cocoa powder plus melted coconut oil or butter in the same proportions works fine in brownies and cakes. What that last version cannot do is set hard, so if you are making a tempered bar or a bonbon shell, only real cocoa mass or a 100 percent bar will give you a snap.

Other cacao paste substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

Substitutes for Cacao Paste with ratios

  1. 2100 percent cacao wafers, discs or feves

    Close match

    Use the same amount by weight

    The same cocoa mass sold in small melting discs by chocolate suppliers, often labelled cocoa liquor or cacao liquor.

    What changes
    Best for
    chocolate making and tempering, bonbon shells, ganache, raw chocolate bars

    Identical material in a more convenient shape, and generally the best-tasting option because these are aimed at chocolate makers rather than at bakers, so the beans are better and the roast is lighter. Discs melt faster and more evenly than a chopped block, which genuinely matters with 100 percent chocolate since it scorches easily. If the label says nothing but cacao or cocoa beans, that is exactly what you want.

  2. 3Very dark chocolate, 85 to 90 percent

    Close match

    Use the same amount by weight, then reduce the recipe's sugar by about 2 tsp per ounce (30 g) used

    A dark eating bar close enough to pure cocoa mass that the difference is mostly sugar.

    What changes
    Best for
    brownies and cakes, ganache and mousse, hot chocolate, chocolate sauces

    The most likely thing to be in the house, and it works well as long as you account for the sugar. An 85 percent bar is around 12 to 15 percent sugar by weight, so the sugar reduction stops the finished dessert tasting cloying. The other change is behaviour: eating bars contain lecithin and extra cocoa butter to make them smooth, so a ganache or a set chocolate made with them comes out softer and glossier and snaps less crisply than one made with pure paste.

  3. 4Cocoa powder plus cocoa butter

    Different texture

    Use 3 Tbsp cocoa powder + 1 Tbsp (14 g) melted cocoa butter for every 1 oz (28 g) cacao paste

    Cacao paste taken apart and reassembled, since paste is essentially cocoa powder and cocoa butter that were never separated.

    What changes
    Best for
    raw chocolate and bars, brownies and cakes, frostings and fillings, chocolate coatings

    Compositionally this is very close to the real thing, and it is the only rebuilt version that will set hard, because cocoa butter is the fat that gives chocolate its snap. The differences you will taste are that natural cocoa powder is more acidic and less roasty than paste, so the result is slightly brighter and thinner-flavoured, and the mouthfeel is a touch drier and grittier because the powder was never conched together with the fat. Melt the cocoa butter first, then whisk the sifted cocoa in off the heat.

  4. 5Cocoa powder plus melted coconut oil or butter

    Taste and texture differ

    Use 3 Tbsp cocoa powder + 1 Tbsp melted coconut oil or unsalted butter for every 1 oz (28 g) cacao paste

    The pantry version, swapping cocoa butter for a fat you already have.

    What changes
    Best for
    brownies, cakes and cupcakes, chocolate sauces and puddings, frostings

    In anything baked or anything served soft this is genuinely fine, and in a brownie it is nearly undetectable. Where it fails, and fails completely, is anywhere the chocolate needs to be solid at room temperature. Coconut oil melts at around 76F or 24C and butter is soft well below that, so a bar or a shell made this way stays fudgy and fingerprints instantly, and it can never be tempered. Butter also brings water and milk solids, which makes the mixture more likely to seize; melt gently and stir it in off the heat.

  5. 6Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

    Taste and texture differ

    1 ½ oz (45 g) chips per 1 oz (28 g) cacao paste, and reduce the recipe's sugar by about 1 Tbsp per 1 ½ oz

    The last-resort option, using sweetened chips to supply the cocoa solids and cocoa butter.

    What changes
    Best for
    brownies and cookies, chocolate cakes, puddings and sauces, quick ganache

    You need more chips than paste because chips are only about half cocoa solids, and then you have to take the sugar back out of the recipe, which is why this is fiddly. Chips are also deliberately formulated with less cocoa butter and more stabiliser so they hold their shape in the oven, which means they melt reluctantly and set into something thicker and duller than real chocolate. Fine in a batter, poor in anything where gloss and flow matter.

What is Cacao Paste?

Cacao Paste is ground roasted cocoa beans with nothing added and nothing taken away, roughly half cocoa solids and half cocoa butter, and it is the same material sold under the names cocoa mass, cocoa liquor, chocolate liquor and cacao liquor.

Cooking tips

  • Chocolate liquor, cocoa liquor and cacao liquor all mean cocoa mass and none of them contain alcohol. The word survives from an old sense of liquor meaning a liquid, describing how the paste flows once the beans are ground fine enough for the cocoa butter to release. Cacao paste is naturally vegan, sugar-free and dairy-free.
  • Pure cacao paste scorches much faster than sweetened chocolate, because there is no sugar or milk buffering it. Chop it small, melt it over barely simmering water or in 20-second microwave bursts stirring between each, and stop while a few small lumps are still visible so the residual heat finishes the job.
  • Do not taste it and panic. Straight cacao paste is aggressively bitter and astringent, and it should be, since every recipe that calls for it adds a sweetener. Judge the flavour after the sugar goes in, not before.
  • Weigh it. Chopped chocolate is one of the worst ingredients to measure by volume, and recipes for chocolate work are written by weight for a reason. One ounce is 28 grams, and a standard baking chocolate square is one ounce.
  • Raw or unroasted cacao paste tastes noticeably sharper, fruitier and more acidic than roasted paste. If a raw dessert recipe specifies raw cacao paste and you use ordinary roasted unsweetened baking chocolate, the result will taste deeper and toastier with less of that bright tang, which is a real difference but not a failure.

Frequently asked questions

Does cacao paste contain alcohol?

No, none at all, and neither does anything sold as cocoa liquor, chocolate liquor or cacao liquor. The word liquor here is an old usage meaning a liquid, referring to the way ground cocoa beans flow once the cocoa butter is released by grinding. Cacao paste is nothing but cocoa beans, so it is also naturally vegan, dairy-free and sugar-free.

Is cacao paste the same as unsweetened chocolate?

For practical purposes yes, and you can swap them 1:1 by weight without changing anything else in a recipe. Both are pure ground cocoa bean at around 100 percent cocoa solids. The only differences are the bean origin and the roast level, so an artisan cacao paste often tastes fruitier and more acidic while a supermarket unsweetened baking bar tastes darker and more roasted.

Can I use cocoa powder instead of cacao paste?

Only if you add fat back. Cocoa powder is cacao paste with most of the cocoa butter pressed out, so using it alone leaves the recipe short of roughly half the ingredient's weight in fat and the result will be dry and crumbly. Use 3 tablespoons cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon melted cocoa butter per ounce of paste, or the same with coconut oil or butter if the finished thing does not need to set hard.

Can I leave cacao paste out of a recipe?

No, because in almost every recipe that calls for it the cacao paste is the chocolate. It supplies the flavour, the cocoa butter that sets the texture and roughly half the weight of a chocolate bar or ganache. There is no version of the recipe without it, only versions made with a different form of chocolate.

What is the difference between cacao paste and cacao butter?

Cacao butter is the pure fat pressed out of the bean, pale ivory and mildly chocolate-scented. Cacao paste is the whole bean ground up, so it contains that fat plus all the dark cocoa solids that carry the flavour and colour. They are not interchangeable: substituting cacao butter for paste gives you a white, barely chocolatey result, and substituting paste for butter makes a white chocolate recipe turn brown and bitter.

Related substitutes

More baking substitutes

Need a different ingredient?

Browse the full index, or the rest of this category.

Browse all substitutesMore baking