![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebThe situation: A brownie recipe I like requires unsweetend chocolate, but I try to buy only shade-grown chocolate*, which I usually can't find as unsweetened chocolate, but I can find it as dark chocolate chips, which are a staple around my house.
The speculation: Chocolate chips have extra sugar, but plain sugar is also needed in the recipe. Therefore, I should be able to increase the chocolate and reduce the sugar to get the same result. But by how much?
Algebra to the rescue!
Givens:
* Recipe requires 3 oz = 85 g unsweetened chocolate
* Recipe requires 1 cup sugar
Conversions:
* 1 tsp sugar = 4 g sugar
* 1 cup of chocolate chips is 163 g (according to a recipe on the back of the package)
Assumption:
Chocolate chips = unsweetened chocolate + sugar
Step 1: Find out how much is chocolate and how much is sugar.
I looked at the nutrition label which is required to show how much sugar is in one serving: Each 15-g serving has 6 g of sugar. Including 5 g of added sugar.
Okay, what? Does chocolate have sugar already? The ingredients are only cacao beans, cane sugar, sunflower lecithin, and vanilla. Searching online, it appears that 29 g baker's chocolate has 0.3 g sugar, none of which is added. I will say that's close enough to zero to ignore. I will therefore use the figure for total sugar.
So in a 15-g serving: 6 g is sugar and (15 - 6 =) 11 g is chocolate.
Step 2: Find out how many grams of chocolate chips I need to get 85 g of unsweetened chocolate.
85 g needed = 11 g / serving * number of servings needed.
servings needed = 85/11 = 7.73
Each serving is 15 g so I need 7.73 servings * 15 g/serving = 115.9 g
Since 1 cup is 163 g, 115.9 g is 0.71 cups or about 3/4 cup.
Step 3: Find out how much sugar is included in 7.73 servings of chocolate chips.
7.73 servings * 6 g/serving = 46.4 g
Step 4: Find out much additional sugar is needed
200 g total needed - 46.4 g from chocolate chips = 153.6 g plain sugar.
Since 1 cup is 200 g, I'll need about 3/4 cup of sugar.
In conclusion:
I will sub 3/4 dark chocolate chips + 3/4 cup sugar for the 80 g of unsweetened chocolate + 1 cup sugar
* Chocolate is rarely, if ever, labeled as shade-grown. However, organic chocolate, fair-trade chocolate, and rainforest-certified chocolate are all shade-grown. They do not require cutting down rainforest to grow. They require working inside the rainforest which is more time consuming and thus more expensive.
For these calculations, I am using Guittard extra dark chocolate baking chips (63% cacao), which is Fair Trade Certified.
The speculation: Chocolate chips have extra sugar, but plain sugar is also needed in the recipe. Therefore, I should be able to increase the chocolate and reduce the sugar to get the same result. But by how much?
Algebra to the rescue!
Givens:
* Recipe requires 3 oz = 85 g unsweetened chocolate
* Recipe requires 1 cup sugar
Conversions:
* 1 tsp sugar = 4 g sugar
* 1 cup of chocolate chips is 163 g (according to a recipe on the back of the package)
Assumption:
Chocolate chips = unsweetened chocolate + sugar
Step 1: Find out how much is chocolate and how much is sugar.
I looked at the nutrition label which is required to show how much sugar is in one serving: Each 15-g serving has 6 g of sugar. Including 5 g of added sugar.
Okay, what? Does chocolate have sugar already? The ingredients are only cacao beans, cane sugar, sunflower lecithin, and vanilla. Searching online, it appears that 29 g baker's chocolate has 0.3 g sugar, none of which is added. I will say that's close enough to zero to ignore. I will therefore use the figure for total sugar.
So in a 15-g serving: 6 g is sugar and (15 - 6 =) 11 g is chocolate.
Step 2: Find out how many grams of chocolate chips I need to get 85 g of unsweetened chocolate.
85 g needed = 11 g / serving * number of servings needed.
servings needed = 85/11 = 7.73
Each serving is 15 g so I need 7.73 servings * 15 g/serving = 115.9 g
Since 1 cup is 163 g, 115.9 g is 0.71 cups or about 3/4 cup.
Step 3: Find out how much sugar is included in 7.73 servings of chocolate chips.
7.73 servings * 6 g/serving = 46.4 g
Step 4: Find out much additional sugar is needed
200 g total needed - 46.4 g from chocolate chips = 153.6 g plain sugar.
Since 1 cup is 200 g, I'll need about 3/4 cup of sugar.
In conclusion:
I will sub 3/4 dark chocolate chips + 3/4 cup sugar for the 80 g of unsweetened chocolate + 1 cup sugar
* Chocolate is rarely, if ever, labeled as shade-grown. However, organic chocolate, fair-trade chocolate, and rainforest-certified chocolate are all shade-grown. They do not require cutting down rainforest to grow. They require working inside the rainforest which is more time consuming and thus more expensive.
For these calculations, I am using Guittard extra dark chocolate baking chips (63% cacao), which is Fair Trade Certified.