Cocoa powder is the quiet workhorse of a busy kitchen, and this is the one to reach for when you want depth without drama. DeZaan's D21/S is a Dutch processed cocoa powder made at Koog aan de Zaan in the Netherlands, where the company has been pressing cocoa on the banks of the river Zaan since 1911, and where it got its name. It is a warm reddish brown, with the rounded, mellow flavour that alkalising brings, and it behaves itself in everything from a sponge batter to a jug of hot chocolate.

At 20 to 22% it sits well above the 10 to 12% of a standard bakers' cocoa, and that extra cocoa butter is what you taste as a fuller, silkier mouthfeel and see as a deeper colour in the finished bake. It is milled fine enough that 99.5% passes a 75 micron sieve, so it slackens into liquid smoothly instead of clinging together in lumps. One of the more economical ways to buy cocoa at this fat level.

What Is Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder? 

Dutch processed, dutched and alkalised all mean the same thing. The cocoa is treated with an alkali, here potassium carbonate, which lifts the pH from naturally acidic to 7.8 to 8.2, close to neutral. That does three useful things: it darkens the colour, it softens the sharp, fruity edge of raw cocoa into something rounder, and it makes the powder disperse far more readily in liquid. It also stops the cocoa reacting with bicarbonate of soda the way natural cocoa does, so follow the raising agents your recipe asks for rather than swapping one type of cocoa for the other.

Read our blog post A Baker's Guide to Cocoa Powder for more tips!

How to Use DeZaan Cocoa Powder

Sift it in with your dry ingredients for cakes, brownies and biscuits, or bloom it first in a little hot liquid to bring the flavour forward before it meets the batter. For drinks, whisk it to a paste with a splash of milk or water before you add the rest, and the higher fat content carries it to a glossy, full bodied cup rather than a thin one. It dusts beautifully over tortes, truffles and tiramisu, and it stirs straight into ganache, ice cream and gelato bases, mousses and glazes.

A 25kg bag runs to roughly a thousand servings of drinking chocolate at 25g a cup, which works out at about 25p a cup, and a 20g dusting over a finished torte costs around 20p.

Important to Know Before You Start

Store it somewhere clean, dry and well ventilated at 15 to 20°C with humidity below 50%, and keep it well away from anything strongly scented, because cocoa powder picks up neighbouring smells readily. Reseal the bag between uses. 

Pairings and Ideas 

It sits happily alongside orange, raspberry, coffee, cherry, chilli, sea salt, hazelnut and bourbon vanilla. A few ideas to try:

• Rich brownies and chocolate sponge
• Drinking chocolate and mochas by the jugful
• Chocolate ice cream and gelato bases
• Dusting for truffles, tortes and tiramisu
• Sacher torte and mirror glazes
• Chocolate pasta and savoury mole sauces
• Macaron shells with a deeper colour