Skip to content

Natural Cocoa Powder substitute

Best substitute

Dutch-process cocoa powder, with the leavening adjusted

Use the same amount by weight or volume, plus 1 tsp lemon juice or white vinegar for every ½ tsp baking soda, or replace that ½ tsp soda with 1 ½ tsp baking powder as the natural cocoa powder you are replacing

Best for chocolate cakes

Different taste

Cocoa that has been washed with an alkaline solution, which neutralises its acidity and darkens it. It is the cocoa most European brands sell and the reason recipes bother to specify which type they want.

Other natural cocoa powder substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

Substitutes for Natural Cocoa Powder with ratios

  1. 2Unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

    Different texture

    Use 1 oz melted unsweetened chocolate for every 3 tbsp natural cocoa, and remove 1 tbsp of butter or oil from the recipe

    Solid 100 percent chocolate, which is essentially cocoa solids with the cocoa butter still in it.

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

    The best swap in terms of chemistry, and one worth knowing: unsweetened baking chocolate is made from beans that have not been alkalized, so it is mildly acidic like natural cocoa and your baking soda still has something to react with. It also tastes fuller and less dusty, because the cocoa butter carries flavour that defatted powder cannot. The catch is fat and moisture. An ounce of chocolate is roughly half cocoa butter, so you must pull a tablespoon of butter or oil out or the batter turns greasy and the cookies spread thin. Melt it gently, let it cool to barely warm before it meets eggs, and expect a slightly denser, fudgier crumb than the cocoa version.

  2. 3Raw cacao powder

    Different taste

    Use the same amount by weight, with 1 tbsp extra sugar per ½ cup if the recipe is not very sweet

    Cold-pressed, unroasted or lightly roasted cocoa powder sold in health-food aisles, never alkalized.

    What changes
    Best for
    brownies, smoothies, energy balls, cakes, hot chocolate

    Chemically the closest thing on this list, because raw cacao is non-alkalized by definition, so the acid that activates your baking soda is still there and the recipe behaves normally. What changes is the flavour and the drink-ability: cacao is more bitter, more astringent and noticeably fruitier, with a tannic grip at the back of the mouth that some people love in a brownie and dislike in a cake. It is also slightly coarser and does not dissolve as smoothly into liquid, so whisk it into hot water or milk first if you are making a drink or a pudding. A little extra sugar or a pinch of salt tames the bitterness.

  3. 4Black cocoa or dark cocoa blend, with the leavening adjusted

    Taste and texture differ

    Use half black cocoa and half Dutch or natural cocoa by weight, and treat the black cocoa portion as Dutch for leavening purposes

    Heavily alkalized cocoa, the ingredient that makes chocolate sandwich cookies look almost ink-black.

    What changes
    Best for
    cookies, crumb crusts, layer cakes, cocoa dusting

    Only worth reaching for if you want the colour, and it is a poor one-for-one swap. Black cocoa is alkalized even harder than Dutch cocoa, so it brings zero acidity and needs the same soda-to-powder fix, and it is very low in fat, which makes baked goods drier and more crumbly if you use it alone. Its flavour is oddly not very chocolatey either: it reads dry, smoky and biscuity rather than fruity or rich. Cutting it half and half with another cocoa gives you the dramatic colour without the chalky texture.

  4. 5Carob powder

    Different taste

    Use the same amount by volume, and reduce the sugar in the recipe by 1 to 2 tbsp per ½ cup of carob

    Roasted, ground carob pod, used as a caffeine-free stand-in for cocoa.

    What changes
    Best for
    caffeine-free baking, brownies, muffins, hot drinks

    Be clear-eyed about this one: carob does not taste like chocolate. It is malty, date-like and naturally sweet, with a roasted, faintly earthy finish and none of cocoa's bitterness, so a carob brownie tastes like a sweet toffee-ish brownie rather than a chocolate one. It is also only weakly acidic, so it cannot be trusted to activate baking soda on its own. If your recipe relies on that, add a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice per 1/2 teaspoon of soda as you would with Dutch cocoa. Where carob genuinely wins is caffeine-free and theobromine-free baking, and it absorbs less liquid than cocoa, so batters come out slightly looser.

  5. 6Melted semi-sweet chocolate or chocolate chips, as a last resort

    Taste and texture differ

    Use About 2 oz melted semi-sweet chocolate for every 3 tbsp cocoa, minus 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp fat from the recipe

    Sweetened chocolate standing in for unsweetened powder, which means you are adding sugar and fat you then have to subtract.

    What changes
    Best for
    brownies, sauces, frostings, puddings

    Honest answer: this is a rough conversion, not a clean one, and it only works where a slightly denser and sweeter result is acceptable. Semi-sweet chocolate is roughly half sugar and half cocoa liquor, so two ounces gets you near the cocoa solids in three tablespoons of powder while dumping about two tablespoons of sugar and a tablespoon of fat into the bowl. Take both back out. Even then the cocoa flavour will be milder and sweeter, and chips in particular contain emulsifiers that keep them from melting into a smooth batter, so chop a bar if you have one. Do not attempt this in a delicate cake where the cocoa also provides dry bulk and structure. It works in brownies and sauces and nowhere else.

What is Natural Cocoa Powder?

Natural Cocoa Powder is Natural cocoa powder is unsweetened cocoa that has had most of its fat pressed out but has not been treated with alkali, so it stays acidic, light reddish-brown and sharply fruity.

Cooking tips

  • Check the box before you assume. In the United States, plain unsweetened cocoa in a brown tin is usually natural, while anything whose ingredient list says processed with alkali, alkalized or Dutch-process is Dutch. European brands are Dutch by default. If there is no label left, natural cocoa is lighter and redder and tastes distinctly sour on the tongue, where Dutch cocoa is darker, greyer-brown and tastes smooth and dusty.
  • Natural cocoa is doing three jobs, not one: bitter chocolate flavour, acidity that reacts with baking soda to make bubbles, and dry starchy bulk that soaks up liquid and holds the crumb together. That is why you cannot simply reduce it to lighten a recipe. Take out three tablespoons of cocoa and you have to put back three tablespoons of flour, or the batter will be too wet.
  • Bloom it. Whisking cocoa into hot water, hot coffee or melted butter before it meets the rest of the batter dissolves the starch granules and releases far more flavour than adding it dry with the flour. A quarter cup of cocoa whisked into a quarter cup of boiling water is the single easiest way to make a chocolate cake taste more chocolatey, and it costs nothing.
  • Red velvet and old-style devil's food cake depend on natural cocoa specifically. Their colour comes from acidic cocoa reacting with baking soda, which is where the reddish tint in the names came from before food dye took over. Swap in Dutch cocoa and you get a brown cake, not a red-brown one, no matter how much soda you add.
  • Always sift or whisk cocoa with the other dry ingredients before combining. Cocoa clumps harder than flour, and unsifted lumps do not break up in a batter. They survive baking as bitter dark pockets, and in a frosting they read as grit.
  • Store it airtight and away from the stove. Cocoa is a fine dry powder that picks up moisture and odours easily, and stale cocoa that has been sitting open next to the spices tastes dusty and flat no matter how good the recipe is.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between natural and Dutch-process cocoa powder?

Both are unsweetened cocoa with most of the fat pressed out. Dutch-process cocoa has been washed with an alkaline solution, which neutralises its natural acidity, darkens the colour and smooths the flavour. Natural cocoa is untreated, so it stays acidic, lighter reddish-brown and sharper and fruitier in taste. The practical consequence is leavening: natural cocoa can activate baking soda and Dutch cocoa cannot.

Can I just use Dutch-process cocoa instead of natural cocoa?

Yes, 1:1, as long as you check the leavening. If the recipe uses baking powder, or contains buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, brown sugar or honey, there is already enough acid and you can swap straight across. If baking soda is the only leavener and there is no other acid, add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or white vinegar for each 1/2 teaspoon of soda, or replace that soda with about 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. Skip the fix and the cake will be flat and faintly metallic or soapy.

Can I leave the cocoa powder out?

Not without replacing it. Cocoa is not a flavouring you can drop like a splash of extract, because it also supplies dry bulk that absorbs liquid, and in soda-leavened recipes it supplies the acid. Removing half a cup of cocoa from a cake without adding roughly half a cup of flour back gives you a wet, sunken batter. If you simply do not want chocolate, find a vanilla version of the recipe rather than subtracting from a chocolate one.

Is cacao powder the same as natural cocoa powder?

Close enough to swap 1:1 in most recipes. Raw cacao powder is pressed from beans that are unroasted or lightly roasted and never alkalized, so like natural cocoa it is acidic and will still activate baking soda. It tastes more bitter, more astringent and fruitier, and it dissolves a little less smoothly, so it is best in brownies and smoothies and slightly aggressive in a delicate cake.

How much cocoa powder equals one ounce of unsweetened chocolate?

Three tablespoons of cocoa powder plus one tablespoon of butter, oil or shortening stands in for one ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate, and the conversion works in reverse too. The fat matters as much as the powder, because the pressing that makes cocoa powder is exactly what removes it, and skipping it gives you a dry, crumbly result.

Related substitutes

More baking substitutes

Need a different ingredient?

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

Browse all substitutesMore baking