Baking Chocolate & Cocoa
Every serious cookie, brownie and hot-chocolate moment starts here. This shelf gathers baking chocolate in its most useful forms — semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate chips, dark chocolate drops, cocoa powder and caffeine-free carob powder — with organic and fair-trade options well represented. There are also sugar-free chocolate chips sweetened with stevia, so bakers keeping an eye on sugar don't have to sit out chocolate-chip season.
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Sweetness is the main decision. Unsweetened chips and cocoa powder give you full control over a recipe's sugar, semi-sweet chips are the all-purpose classic for cookies and muffins, and dark chocolate drops melt smoothly for dipping and ganache. Brands like Camino specialize in organic, fairly traded chocolate, while stevia-sweetened chips from makers such as Krisda and Ross Chocolates cover no-sugar-added baking. Whichever you pick, chocolate keeps best sealed in a cool cupboard, away from strong odours.
Carob powder deserves a mention of its own. Ground from the pod of the carob tree, it's naturally caffeine-free with a mellow, honeyed flavour, and it swaps into recipes anywhere cocoa powder would go — smoothies included. Cocoa powder itself is more versatile than the baking aisle suggests: whisk it into porridge, blend it into shakes or dust it over desserts. Keep both in tightly closed containers and they'll stay fresh through many baking sessions.
