# Cocoa percentage question



## corazon (Jan 18, 2007)

I recently recieved "The Essence of Chocolate," by John Scharffenberger & Robert Steinberg. What an amazing book! I'm looking forward to making incredible chocolatey treats. I thought I'd start out with their simple chocolate cake. So...here's my question:

The frosting recipe calls for 5oz 99% unsweetened choc and 1 1/4 cup sugar. All they had at my grocery store was 70% bittersweet. How much sugar should I put in? And how else might my frosting be differed by this change in percentage?

Maybe there's a guy out there named Robert that can help shine some light?

Thanks very much!


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## jkath (Jan 18, 2007)

Try going somewhere other than a grocery store for your chocolate. I've not seen 99% (yet!) but you can get some larger percentages at Williams Sonoma and also at Cost Plus World Market.

I bet you'd have to keep the ration of the sugar the same, to keep the consistency of the recipe (JMHO)

Is Michael around? He always knows that kind of stuff too.


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## aguynamedrobert (Jan 18, 2007)

That book says 99% because Scharffen Berger makes a 99% chocolate. The equal to that is 100% unsweetened chocolate or chocolate liquor...Almost every store will carry that...Ghirardelli puts one out and so does Bakers chocolate. Those are two most popular in grocery stores.

You can substitute other chocolates for that(like you were talking about). If you substitute the 70% cacao content chocolate for the 99% then I would just say to bring down the sugar 1/4 cup....I would say to try that first and see how it comes out...it will be close if nothing else...but I think it will work fine...it is going to come down to the sweetness level. I do not think that the frosting will be affected negatively in texture or form because of it...

What is the process to make the frosting? 

Have a good one,
Robert
Chocolate Guild :: learn about chocolate, talk about chocolate


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## jkath (Jan 18, 2007)

whoops! I read it as the percentage of cacao, not the percentage of sweetness - sorry corazon!


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