Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

The dark chocolate chips used on Paul’s Chocolate cake recipe, is it sweetened or unsweetened? In case I don’t have exactly that same chocolate brand, can I use the kind of chocolate that I use to cover cake pops but of a higher quality?

The callets which Paul uses contain approx 50-60% cocoa solids which means they will contain other ingredients such as sugar so yes it is sweetened. You can use any brand of chocolate which you enjoy eating, it doesn’t have to be professional baking or patisserie chocolate. Paul’s recipe works really well with chocolate which contains 45-50% cocoa solids. Your local supermarket’s own brand may contain this amount of solids or look for any of the fair trade chocolates. To be honest, many people just use a regular bar of dark chocolate. It is important however to use a good cocoa powder, not the drinking chocolate but one which is used for baking and will state on the container 100% cocoa powder.