And because not all baked goods benefit from the heavy texture of cocoa butter, cooks who use cocoa can combine it with the right amount and type of fat to make crisper cookies or more tender cakes. Like chocolate, cocoa is made from cocoa beans that are fermented, dried, roasted, and ground to a paste known as chocolate liquor. About half of this paste is cocoa butter. Although most of cocoa's flavor doesn't come from cocoa butter, the process of extracting the fat can damage cocoa's delicate taste. The best-quality cocoas have relatively high amounts of fat and the deepest, richest flavors.
Cocoa is mildly acidic.
These cookies owe their chocolatey intensity to cocoa. Natural and Dutched both work well here. Nonalkalized or natural cocoa has long been the base for traditional American recipes. Natural cocoa is medium ochre brown in color and very bitter on the tongue. Small amounts of potassium carbonate are used to reduce acidity in the cocoa beans.