Do You Have to 'Bloom' Cocoa Powder?

Some professional bakers tell you to dissolve cocoa powder in boiling liquid before you bake with it. Does that really intensify the chocolatey flavor? It seems illogical; the cocoa will get wet and hot when it bakes in the cake, so what more could this "blooming" step accomplish? To find out, I bake the same cake two ways.

[aragusea]

Q: Does this mean you're putting out a chocolate cake recipe video on Thursday?
A: Maybe...

Q: What if my recipe doesn't call for any water-based liquid?
A: Yeah, this won't work then, it'll throw off your chemistry. That said, with the notable exception of some brownie recipes, I'm struggling to think of a recipe involving cocoa powder that wouldn't involve milk or water or coffee that you could boil before whisking in the cocoa.

Q: Why didn't you do a blind taste test?
A: That would be really tough to do on my own. I might get Lauren to help me with that in the future, when I'm dealing with things involving really subtle distinctions, but this is not that subtle. There was no doubt in my mind the cake with bloomed cocoa tasted better. It was immediately obvious.

Q: Don't you think the hot water just extracted flavor from the cocoa the same way it does when you brew coffee or tea?
A: I think that's exactly what's happening. The question is: Why wouldn't baking the cocoa in the wet batter have the same effect? In the cake, the cocoa is dissolved in water. It reaches 210 F. What's the difference?

[ednamode]

Why is your voice so calm but your eyes so shocked?

[kirmityou]

But what if you dissolve it in white wine?

[elboberto]

As a chemist, I think the difference in taste is largely due to the fact that while the "unbloomed" cocoa reaches the same temperature when baking, the water that would be extracting its flavors is already saturated with sugar, salt and being absorbed by the flour which means that it has a lot less capacity to extract flavors from the cocoa. If you wanted to continue testing I think it would be very interesting to do tests blooming the cocoa in hot vegetable oil or butter as well as maybe vodka or another alcohol to see if blooming in those solvents yields a more chocolately flavor or an entirely different experience altogether.

[nanchoparty]

To be honest, I'm not that big on any of the topics, but the way he speaks is almost mesmerizing.

[TheFunman]

I’m confused, where does the white wine come into play?

[tiffanymarrigold]

The cocoa powder is essentially dried, ground-up plants which means, naturally, it's high in fiber. Some types of fiber act as a hydrocolloid (the food kind) so it is entirely possible that the reconstitution of the cocoa powder when also paired with heat results in the water soluble fiber forming a hydrocolloid in a similar fashion to the gelatinisation process in cornflour. The water would also help "push" some oils from the cocoa powder, which then also gets emulsified. This means that not only is the cocoa powder's water-soluble flavourings being dispersed but so is the fat-soluble ones, and in a more even and uniform manner than previously. By heating the water and cocoa powder mixture earlier on, the cocoa powder can soak up more water - which makes perfect sense as many other things also can reach higher saturation if they are heated first (the first thing that comes to mind being sugar in water).


Now, the obvious question: wouldn't this happen in the unbloomed cocoa powder too?


Well, yes and no. By blooming the cocoa, you are giving it perfect conditions to get saturated and to gelatinise, emulsify, push out oils... etc. In the unbloomed cake, the cocoa powder is mixed with the water but as it is unheated it cannot absorb as much so less oil displacement occurs and little/no gelatinisation happens. Then, it is mixed with the other ingredients. These other ingredients, especially the flour and the egg which absorb and trap water respectively, reduce the amount of water the cocoa powder is able to absorb. Also, even if it does manage to absorb and gelatinise (which is harder without proper hydration) it is then trapped in these tiny pockets and furthermore less of the flavouring oils have been pushed out overall too, which means that there is mostly the water-soluble flavourings, which are transfered rather inefficiently through the cake. Ultimately, this means that the cake with the better dispersal, and with more oils mixing with the ingredients (especially the fat from things like the egg yolk or even fat from the cocoa powder itself), tastes better.


Hopefully this made sense <3

[ngohanhnguyen]

“Bloomed cocoa is on the right”
Me: wait a minute
*has Vietnam flashback*
_vinegar leg is on the

[a.gangat]

Clicked so fast
Love him
Bloomed cocoa is on the right!

[mesozoicera]

Your videos like this conjure Alton Brown's Good Eats learning episodes. Your videos with just recipes are reminiscent of Chef John. You are doing great man. Don't Change a thing!

[sadabetas]

The reason is all about l crystal structure. Cocoa is finely dispersed C5 crystals that have high melting point and are used for baking but are not as flavorful. When you incorporate to cold water only some of the structure is dissolved and it is a colloid. Baking does not completely destroy this structure bc they rectystalize using this C5 template when the cake cools and firms. Blooming cocoa causes a mix of other C1-4 structures to form before incorporation. This is why the bloomed chocolate is harder to incorporate w other ingredients bc it’s not a colloid but actual hardened chocolate.

[FrostPhoenix_]

Adam Ragusea is the definition of "Quality Content".

Straight to the point, no bs, no click baity wordings or thumbnails, just pure perfection! <3

[kkgt]

You have to do a blind test for to be sure. My amateur theory is that the hot water just releases the oils or volatile components and they integrate better with the batter.

[aceofspades]

While the water you boiled was not hotter than 212 F, the bottom of that pot was likely north of 285 F. Maybe try redoing the test, but this time pour the boiling water into another bowl, then add the cocoa powder to that bowl to bloom (like you did in the b-roll footage). If the taste difference is still basically as noticeable, then it's probably not the Maillard reaction. As for theories, I'd go with that heat and time are not the only two factors in developing flavors. Flavors develop with various combinations of ingredients added at specific times throughout the cooking process. When you add the wet and dry ingredients together, and then apply heat and time, the resulting effect on the flavor development of the cocoa would not necessarily be the same as if you added heat and time to only cocoa and water, then added the remaining wet and dry ingredients, and then applied more heat and time. As for a more science-y sounding theories/questions as to why, wouldn't the application of ~205 F - 210 F heat possibly alter/break some molecular bonds in the cocoa when mixed into a neutral medium like water? And is it possible that when the same ~205 F - 210 F heat is applied to the more viscous medium (cocoa plus all other wet and dry ingredients), those same molecular bonds are not altered/broken in the same manner, so it alters flavor development?

[msiddhartho]

I think you may need to do a blind taste test to be sure. You maybe be biased because you knew which one was bloomed.

For science?

[Cosmolovescheese]

I reckon I can answer this! Dried powders like cocoa powder have a property called "wettability". Wettability is constant at a given temperature, and increases as temperature increases. Cocoa powder has quite low wettability, so will require high temperature to fully hydrate (and therefore taste good). As for why it won't be the same as baking, that's due to the other wettable powders in there (mostly flour). These will essentially compete for the water, slowing the capillary action, increasing viscosity, and lowering the surface tension of the liquid - all of these decrease wettability.

[heyitsnataliec]

This is my new favorite youtube channel. Adam has the most entertaining personality ever. I feel like I’m watching Bill Nye for cooking.

[ItsaJuraff]

I love the style of your videos. Very concise and to the point, but still very informative and focused around making the viewer a better, more intelligent cook. So much fun to watch. Also, love having the recipe in the description! You're the best!

[FractalJaguar]

I have been watching your videos for a while now, and I love your concise style. It is so refreshing to see short, to the point, no bullshit videos these days. Thanks for not padding out your videos with nonsense like so many others seem to do these days!

[nudafu]

Glad you made this video leading to such informative comments. It has answered a long term question I've had. I made a vegan hot chocolate for a nun once. (The monastery had a festival where only vegan was permitted. The nun was my favourite person at the place; she was tired so I wanted to give her a treat). I could only use cocoa, water and sugar. While ganache requires cream (very creamy milk also works), the texture of the ganache was still achievable without dairy with a series of bloom, whisk, rest, whisk. I didn't think it would work but I got that decadent, silky sheen characteristic of ganache. The nun turned out surprised, pleased but mighty worried. She was convinced I'd put milk into it (and get her in trouble) because she couldn't believe that consistency could be achieved without it. I suspect blooming the cocoa and air from whisking must make ganache happy.