Carob powder rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 23 recipes to cook with it.

What is carob powder?

Carob powder is made from the dried, roasted pods of the carob tree, an evergreen native to the Mediterranean. The pods are ground into a fine, reddish-brown powder that looks a lot like cocoa and gets used the same way, as a chocolate stand-in.

The big draws are that it is naturally sweet and contains no caffeine or theobromine, the stimulants in cocoa. That makes it a favorite for people avoiding both, and the reason it became the health-food chocolate substitute of the 1970s.

Honesty helps here. Carob does not taste like chocolate. It is sweeter and milder, a little malty or toffee-like, with none of cocoa's deep bitterness. Go in expecting carob's own flavor and you will enjoy it far more than if you expect a chocolate twin.

How to Use Carob Powder

Treat it like cocoa with a head start on sweetness. Sift it to break up lumps, then whisk it into the dry ingredients of a batter so it disperses evenly. It works straight into cakes, brownies, cookies, and quick breads, as Carob Cake and Carob Brownies show.

Because carob already brings sugar of its own, you can usually cut the sugar in a recipe slightly when you use it. Start by trimming about a tablespoon or two per cup of carob and taste the batter.

It also dissolves into warm milk for a caffeine-free hot drink, and stirs into smoothies and no-bake squares like Creamy Carob Squares.

Bakers sometimes add just a spoonful to a yeast dough for color and a faint malty depth rather than for chocolate flavor. That is the trick behind dark loaves such as Monastery of Angels Brown Bread, where carob deepens the crumb without announcing itself.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Carob's mellow, toffee sweetness loves warm partners. Dates, banana, orange, cinnamon, vanilla, and toasted nuts all flatter it, which is why Carob Date Brownie Mix pairs it with dates so naturally.

The most common mistake is scorching it. Carob's sugars burn at a lower temperature than cocoa, so it can turn bitter and grainy over direct heat or in a too-hot oven. Keep it off the stovetop's hot spots and watch baking carob goods a touch more carefully than chocolate ones.

The other trap is over-sweetening. People treat carob like cocoa and add the full sugar, ending up with something cloying. Trust its built-in sweetness and pull back.

Substitutes

Cocoa powder is the obvious swap and the one most recipes assume. Use it one for one by weight, but because cocoa is bitter and unsweetened, add a little extra sugar to match carob's natural sweetness, and expect a deeper, more bitter result.

Going the other direction, carob replaces cocoa one for one in most recipes, with a lighter, sweeter outcome. For a closer chocolate flavor, use Dutch-process cocoa instead, which is mellower than natural cocoa.

If you want the toffee-malt character specifically, a spoonful of malted milk powder or a little molasses can echo part of it, though neither browns or behaves quite like carob in baking.

Buying and Storing

Carob powder comes raw or roasted, and roasted is what most baking recipes want. Roasting deepens both color and that signature toasty-sweet flavor, while raw carob is paler and milder. Check the label if the flavor matters to your recipe.

Keep it in an airtight container away from heat and light. Like cocoa, it stays good for a long time, roughly a year or more for best flavor, though it rarely spoils outright.

Carob is hygroscopic, meaning it readily absorbs moisture and clumps, so a tight seal matters and a quick sift before use smooths out any lumps.

Quick facts

In Chinese

角豆树粉

British (UK) term

Carob powder

en français

poudre de caroube

en español

polvo de algarroba

Recipes using carob powder

There are 23 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 23 recipes