Those mushy bananas on the counter have been calling your name for three days now. You’ve got the flour, the sugar, the butter, and the (way, way overripe) bananas all prepped for the best brown butter banana bread. You’ll need to add chocolate, of course, so you run to the store and find yourself face-to-face with the baking aisle’s floor-to-ceiling selection of chocolate and chocolate chips. Before you reach for those semisweet chocolate chips, you might want to consider picking up a pack of unsweetened chocolate instead.
Unsweetened chocolate can be beneficial for baking recipes because it will give the food a more intense chocolate flavor without making the baked good too sweet. Unsweetened chocolate, sometimes called baking chocolate, is made of 100% cacao with zero added sugar. It’s quite literally pure chocolate. Unsweetened chocolate is a kind of dark chocolate (here’s the best dark chocolate in the world) that might not be pleasant to consume on its own, but used in baking can make the chocolate flavor stronger and richer than you ever expected.
Use unsweetened chocolate when you want a bold flavor without too much sweetness
Unsweetened chocolate begins the way all chocolate does: on the cacao tree, otherwise known as Theobroma cacao. These trees thrive in warm, tropical regions, which is why most of the world’s cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast. Cacao pods are harvested from trees twice per year and split open to reveal the cacao seeds, which are then dried and fermented for up to a week. Once the fermentation period is up, the cacao beans are cleaned and roasted, then the shell is removed to reveal the cacao nibs. The nibs become cocoa liquor, which is then refined and tempered, since unsweetened chocolate doesn’t receive the same milk or sugar additives that other chocolates do.
There’s a myth that you can substitute unsweetened chocolate with cocoa powder and butter, but it won’t produce the same results as good old-fashioned baking chocolate. Real unsweetened chocolate is the most ideal option for brownies, cookies, or banana bread, since it’ll make the bread denser and the chocolate fudgier. Even a mole sauce could benefit from unsweetened chocolate, bringing to life smooth undertones from the cacao.
Don’t worry about unsweetened chocolate making your recipes taste bitter — that’s what the other sugar is for. You’re already putting sugar into brownie and cookie mixes, so you don’t need the sugar from chocolate to make the baked goods sweet.
