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The admirable Redbird went down the hill this morning in search of supplies to make me a birthday cake. She went to the small Shaws (regional supermarket chain, like a Krogers or Wegmans) which is only half a mile away. It's down a moderately steep hill with lousy pavement, but still only half a mile. There's a Whole Foods a third of a mile away, but they usually don't have regular granulated sugar. They have organic sugar, turbinado sugar, coconut sugar, date sugar [1]...they are all too coarse for the recipe we wanted to use, so she braved the hill to find the sugar of our ancestors.
The sugar was essential for the cake. The cocoa powder was on the "nice to have" list. We usually bake with cocoa powder, and we had enough left for our usual birthday cake, but it would have been nice to have some dutch process cocoa and try a different recipe using that.[2] I expect any grocery store to have natural cocoa like the Hershey's powder in the brown box, but the dark dutch process stuff is more of a specialty item.
They don't sell cocoa powder anymore. It's not sold out, with a shelf tag saying the little brown boxes are supposed to be there, and how much they cost before everyone bought them. The shelf is full of other things. The person stocking the shelves doesn't know of any place for such a thing. When I stop and think about it, I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. There are only so many places on the shelves, and they need them for boxed cake mix, and pre-mixed syrup for making hot chocolate. Most people who bought the plain Hershey's powder (or their competitors) are more likely to use the pre-mixed stuff.
[1] They also have agave syrup, brown rice syrup, stevia, monkfruit, and molasses, which would all have been wrong in different ways.
[2] Note to non-bakers. Both are unsweetened powders, just processed differently to get them from bean to powder.
The sugar was essential for the cake. The cocoa powder was on the "nice to have" list. We usually bake with cocoa powder, and we had enough left for our usual birthday cake, but it would have been nice to have some dutch process cocoa and try a different recipe using that.[2] I expect any grocery store to have natural cocoa like the Hershey's powder in the brown box, but the dark dutch process stuff is more of a specialty item.
They don't sell cocoa powder anymore. It's not sold out, with a shelf tag saying the little brown boxes are supposed to be there, and how much they cost before everyone bought them. The shelf is full of other things. The person stocking the shelves doesn't know of any place for such a thing. When I stop and think about it, I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. There are only so many places on the shelves, and they need them for boxed cake mix, and pre-mixed syrup for making hot chocolate. Most people who bought the plain Hershey's powder (or their competitors) are more likely to use the pre-mixed stuff.
[1] They also have agave syrup, brown rice syrup, stevia, monkfruit, and molasses, which would all have been wrong in different ways.
[2] Note to non-bakers. Both are unsweetened powders, just processed differently to get them from bean to powder.
