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A vision of chocolate's future in an Amsterdam brownie

58 points by laurex

by senkora

2 subcomments

The article covers a variety of different approaches to dealing with high cocoa prices, but the Amsterdam brownie in the title is using a more heavily alkalized cocoa powder to maintain a similar taste while using less cocoa:
> The former gets its punch from using more heavily “dutched,” or alkalized, cocoa. It’s also what made that magical brownie taste so chocolatey.

by telesilla

6 subcomments

I've been enjoying many fake/replacement things for years: vegan ice-cream, beyond meat, quorn, vaping.. I'll be happy if we can move away from damaging products relying on unsustainable cocoa production.
Nice mention of Tony's Chocolonely, if you pass through the Netherlands it's one of the great gifts to pick up to take home.

by happyopossum

7 subcomments

> alt-chocolate is here to stay, in the same way that it’s become commonplace to gorge on a passable meat-free burger
Is it though? Outside of personal bubbles, does anyone see impossible/beyond ‘meat’ being regularly consumed? It’s been relegated to a tiny shelf of my grocery store’s butcher shop, to the point that I can’t recall the last time I even saw it there.

by derbOac

1 subcomments

I have lots of thoughts about this. I never like to see the price of something increase, and the reasons for the increase in this case are not anything anyone wants. On the other hand, for me personally I feel like chocolate is far too prevalent, at least in the US, and if it led to more variety in desserts and candy I'd be happy.
Carob seems relevant to this? I know the associations from the 70s and 80s but I sort of feel like that was a marketing or framing problem rather than a taste problem. Substitute anything never goes over well.
I also feel like what's happening with cocoa and chocolate is representative of a lot of agricultural products today. Vanilla prices skyrocketed at some point in recent memory for similar reasons and haven't recovered, and there's similar tradeoffs involved there, with companies doing all sorts of things to offer alternatives to expensive pure natural vanilla or inexpensive artificial vanilla.

by bn-l

4 subcomments

I’ve stopped all consumption of chocolate after reading about the amount of lead in it.

by nlawalker

0 subcomment

From last month, an article in the Atlantic about how candy makers are experimenting with new non-chocolate ingredients and flavors in existing brands:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/10/chocolate-shortag... (gift link)

by ginko

0 subcomment