Cocoa or melted chocolate?

[espeons]

Do you prefer to use cocoa or melted chocolate in a chocolate sponge? I've always used cocoa but tried melted plain chocolate today instead, as I was out of cocoa, and the cake was much more moist. I only bought cheap chocolate as well, but it came out great. I just wondered what everyone else prefers to use?

 

[Tracky]

I usually use cocoa,but i mix with boiling water before adding to cake mixture,seems to makes it more chocolatey and moist.Oil instead of butter/marg keeps it more moist and cakes last longer too-though not in our house!!

 

[lleulu]

To tell the truth I use both. I try to always put half melted dark chocolate and half unsweetened chocolate powder. The chocolate makes the cake more moist and also gives it a nice smoothness, but I am afraid the cake would be too sweet if I used only chocolate. And also the cocoa powder is much cheaper where I come from

 

[espeons]

The cake I made with just chocolate was very sweet, I hadn't considered using a mix. I think I'll have to experiment a little. Actually, the cocoa powder was quite expensive so chocolate worked out cheaper, but it was the cheapest chocolate I could find (still tasted nice though as I tried a square!).

 

[OhioTom76]

Well it makes sense the chocolate cake would be more moist since you are adding the extra fat from the chocolate into it, vs just the powdered variety. I often forget to grab some bags of chocolate to have on hand for baking recipes, but since I always have some cocoa powder on hand, that is what I tend to use for my recipes. If I buy bags of chocolate, I am usually putting them in chocolate chip cookies, or melting them down in a double boiler to make truffles.

 

[True2marie]

Cocoa is easier to use in a sponge, but melted chocolate tastes much better. The end results are a much richer, moist sponge cake. I discovered this after switching up the way I made chocolate pound cake. The trick is to get a method of melting chocolate without burning this substance.