Sweet cocoa and sugar amounts in cake???

[Dina]

Does anyone know how much I should add to my cake recipe when it asks for 1 cup of cocoa and 2.5 cups of sugar? I'm using sweet cocoa and thought of adding only 1.5 cups of sugar. I don't want it to be too sweet. Any suggestions?

 

[Louette]

You mean like drinking cocoa? What does the label say about the ingredients on the cocoa packet? Have you tasted the cocoa? How sweet is it already? You might try mixing a teaspoon of sweet cocoa with 2.5 tsp of sugar to see how that tastes, first, then adjust the relative amounts of cocoa and sugar.

 

[aguynamedrobert]

If you want to be technical about it then find how many grams of sugar are in each serving and divide that by the Grams in each total serving...that will give you the percentage sugar to cocoa(it's technical but it will get you your answer)....

Hope it helps...
Robert
Chocolate Guild :: The Chocolate Connoisseur's Home Base

 

[Candocook]

If this is cocoa mix I would not use it in a cake. You really can't calculate it at all.

 

[Louette]

Robert is right - calculation is the best way to get things just perfect if your sweet cocoa lists the percent of sugar or the grams of sugar per gram of sweet cocoa. Sweet cocoa here is "drinking chocolate" and has things like whey powder and milk solids as well as sugar, but the packet I'm holding has 4g sugar per 11.5g of mix, or about one third sugar.
You'd have to check your own packet. That still may not give the relative amount of cocoa unless your sweet cocoa is nothing but sugar and cocoa. That's why a taste test may still be useful unless your packet gives more details on contents than mine does.
(I figure my packet is probably about a third cocoa, a third milk products, and a third sugar.)

 

[Dina]

Thanks you all. I'll keep the calculations on hand for next time. I used Ghirardelli's sweet chocolate and cocoa to bake the cake and used one cup less sugar than it asked for in the recipe. It was wonderful and everyone loved it at work!