The Best Chocolate Chips for Cookies
Note: Please give a warm welcome to Heather Rawlinson, our new chocolate correspondent. She kicks things off with ooey-gooey chocolate chip cookie analysis—which chips are best? You might want to grab a cold glass of milk for this one. Take it away, Heather!
[Photograph: Heather Rawlinson]
Like so many other great discoveries, the chocolate-chip cookie supposedly started out as a mistake. According to the story, which seems to border on myth, Ruth Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts intended to make chocolate cookies for her guests one day.
After running out of her usual baking chocolate, she improvised with some Nestle chocolate morsels instead. To her surprise, the chocolate chips didn't melt and combined with the dough just as her usual chocolate did. In fact, the bits kept their shape and to our eternal benefit, Mrs. Wakefield didn't throw the “mistake” away. Thus, the first chocolate-chip cookie was born.
Over 70 years later, there are now many variations of the classic, with additions such as nuts, dried fruits, and the most important component, chocolate chips, which come in a variety of forms.
Semi-Sweet Chocolate
The original chocolate chip cookie was made with Nestle semi-sweet chocolate morsels. The semi-sweet chocolate offers a "deeper" chocolate flavor than milk chocolate—it contains more cocoa and less sugar, and tends to push its way through the other flavors of the cookie dough a bit better. If I don’t have access to a darker chocolate, I grab a bag of the semi-sweet. Though I don't have a favorite, store brands seem to offer more of an authentic chocolate taste than the bigger, mass-produced name brands. Go figure!
Milk Chocolate
Milk chocolate contains less cocoa and more milk and sugar than semi-sweet. The flavor tends to be a bit milder, which means it can get lost in the cookie. Milk chocolate is great for melting down and using as a topping or a dip for other sweet treats, but it doesn't really shine in cookies.
60% Bittersweet Baking Morsels
My favorite chocolate to use in cookies are Ghirardelli’s 60% bittersweet chips. The chocolate is intense and smooth, and the morsels are bigger than any others I've found, save for See's Candies baking chips,which means you can use less in a batch. I like to chop them up just a bit so they distribute more evenly in the dough.
White Chocolate
I have a love-hate relationship with white chocolate. I won’t argue that it has its place, but there are very, very few situations where I can tolerate it—and cookies are one of them. While they really don't bring much flavor to the scene, I use them if I want the smooth texture of chocolate without actually using chocolate (this doesn’t happen often, but it does happen). My favorite recipe combines white chocolate chips with chopped pecans and dried cranberries.
The Best?
Even though I recommend my personal favorite, the Ghirardelli’s 60% bittersweet chips, my best advice is to experiment for yourself. Grab a bag of each, have a cookie-making weekend, and invite friends over to have a taste-test party!
About the author: Heather Rawlinson is a married mom of three girls living in southern Nevada and has been writing online since 1998. When she's not blogging here and at Chocolate Bytes, she enjoys spending time with her family and pets, reading, watching movies, cooking, and baking.
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32 Comments:
i've reached the same conclusion. the ghirardelli bittersweet are my favorites, but instead of chopping them up, i increase the amount. my standard CCC recipe calls for one cup of chips, but i just add the entire bag, and i've never had any complaints!
cybercita at 10:38AM on 09/16/09
I want to be a chocolate correspondent!
lambowner at 10:42AM on 09/16/09
milk chocolate, along with toasted pecans,OUTSTANDING!, for Christmas this year, I am making them with white chocolate chunks,dried cranberrys, and toasted pistachios.
jword2001 at 10:55AM on 09/16/09
Are the chips in the first photo Ghirardelli bittersweet?
caroliiine at 11:05AM on 09/16/09
Hi Caroliiine! They are :)
Heather Rawlinson at 11:27AM on 09/16/09
I've grown a preference for the chunks rather than the chips. A bit more chocolate heft!
AnaPowell at 11:32AM on 09/16/09
I like my chips on the smaller side, or at least a lower chocolate to cookie ratio.
eeels at 11:34AM on 09/16/09
Yeah I completely disagree with using chips, pastilles/wafers/disks are the way to go.
Noah_With_Suspenders at 11:36AM on 09/16/09
I'm a Scharffen-berger loyalist myself... their 40% milk chocolate is the best of both worlds!
James Boo at 11:49AM on 09/16/09
The chocolate chip cookie is the yardstick of the dessert industry. So simple, yet so easy to do wrong. Great article!
BrownEggMarketing at 11:59AM on 09/16/09
I just discovered, and love, Publix semi-sweet chocolate chips. They fit in the "more authentic store brand" category. But I will never again buy Laura Lynn chocolate chips (Ingles' brand). I found them waxy and general disappointing.
SLRicker at 12:11PM on 09/16/09
@James Boo
Absolutely, Scharffen-berger milk chocolate is super smooth and seems to have a great chocolate flavor and have a smooth texture well after the cookies have cooled. In fact they're great in chilled cookies as I often have em stashed in my lunch which resides often in the office fridge.
Seina at 12:22PM on 09/16/09
feves, dark. I think they're from valrhona, bought at whole foods.
maggiej at 1:28PM on 09/16/09
My very favorite chocolate chip recipe is by Dorie Greenspan and calls not for chips but for chunks cut from a block of high-quality chocolate -- I use Caillebaut semisweet chocolate. Of course, I never turn up my nose at classic Toll House cookies made from Toll House chocolate chips by the recipe on the back of the bag.
emgroff at 2:07PM on 09/16/09
Can't agree more about the Ghirardelli 60%. As with anything, it's all about personal preference, but I love the chocolate flavour and the texture of these.. and they are the perfect size. I have tried dozens of different types of chocolate in my cookies, all with varying degrees of success, but go back to the Ghirardelli 60% on a regular basis.
jason at 2:14PM on 09/16/09
I prefer milk chocolate Hershey's bars, broken into chunks. You get the expected chocolate flavor, but also great caramelized milk and coffee flavors.
Personally, I find that using a candy milk chocolate conveys a greater depth and personality to the cookie. Dark chocolate cookies can often be very one-dimensional, cloying and uninteresting, despite using very expensive ingredients.
lanthis at 4:18PM on 09/16/09
Guittard Semi-Sweet for life. They can be hard to find, so in understocked grocery stores I'll go for Ghirardelli 60% but really, nothing compares to Guittard, whether in cookies (preferably The Silver Palette's recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies) or straight from the bag while you watch "Law & Order: SVU" marathons. Not that I would know anything about that...
Wayward Daughter at 6:26PM on 09/16/09
I want a chocolate chip cookie sooo badly right now.
What about those Jacques Torres chocolate disks everyone raves about that are used in the New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe?
Chew on That at 9:42AM on 09/17/09
emgroff - do you mean the World Peace Cookies? Those are tasty!
Wayward - I do agree, Guittard are delicious as well. Like you said, unfortunately hard to find, though.
Chew - I haven't been able to get my hands on those yet, but when I do...!
Heather Rawlinson at 9:46AM on 09/17/09
My two cents: Guittard Semi-Sweet are the best!
aburke at 11:12AM on 09/17/09
my two cents: Guittard Semi-Sweet is the best chip...
aburke at 11:26AM on 09/17/09
Y'all are not right for flashing this cookie porn across my screen this early in the morning. This cookie looks like pure heaven. I agree with all of the suggestions (Guittard, Ghirardelli, etc), but (and not that this is the specific topic at hand) what I've found is that the cookies that treated me the best had a mix of a 60% or semi sweet chocolate chip mixed in with a milk chocolate chip. Now THAT is heaven!
skerlieb at 12:38PM on 09/17/09
Ghirardelli’s milk chocolate chips are the best chocolate chips to use in a cookie. As a big chocolate lover, I've always loved very dark chocolate, but I have found that in my mom's recipe for chunky chocolate chip cookies, Ghirardelli's large milk chocolate chips work the best. The flavor definitely does not get lost in the cookie, especially since Ghirardelli's chips are larger than the average chip. But it gives a better texture in the cookie- slightly soft and very pleasant to bite into
hmgreen616 at 1:32PM on 09/17/09
wait, this doesn't make any sense:
"the morsels are bigger than any others I've found... which means you can use less in a batch. I like to chop them up just a bit so they distribute more evenly in the dough."
They're bigger... so you chop them up... which means then they're the same size? I'm all for doing things because you want to and not because they make sense, so I think you should say that's what this is :)
krissy80 at 4:48PM on 09/17/09
Hi Krissy! Ack - I meant to clarify that a bit better! I like to chop up *some* of the morsels that I add to the cookies, but definitely not all. This helps stretch them out just a bit so I don't use the whole bag (which means another batch of cookies later!) Sorry for the confusion!
Heather Rawlinson at 4:53PM on 09/17/09
I only like white chocolate when it's in cookies with dried fruit.
CanadianFoodieGirl at 10:52AM on 09/18/09
Last weekend I made cookies using a package of See's baking chips I'd been hoarding for a few years (yes a few years.) They look just like the picture, and I was happy with them. With that said, obviously it is not easy to get See's where I live, and they aren't exactly cost effective.
I used Valrhona before to good result, but between See's and Valrhona making chocolate chip cookies become prohibitively expensive. I also can't help but wonder if some of the high quality chocolate taste doesn't get lost in the baking. I would gladly spend extra for noticeable taste difference and just bake cookies less - husband likely does not agree with this sentiment, but I'm not convinced there is a taste difference. I've never eaten expensive versus affordable chips one right after the other.
I cannot wait to try Guittard or Ghiradelli, because they are at least 1/4 the cost of the Sharffenberger, Valrhona or See's. Maybe I should do a blind taste test with friends.
bingsy at 9:44AM on 09/19/09
Scharffen Berger 62% is my absolute favorite. The chunks hold their shape but are melted with a rich chocolate flavor. Love.
Lotus7 at 11:10AM on 09/19/09
This post inspired me to pick up a bag of Ghiradelli 60% semi-sweets. Now it's a toss up... choco chip cookies or chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes :-)
dmcavanagh at 8:22PM on 09/19/09
I use 1 1/2 cups Tollhouse chips and 1 1/2 cups Ghiradelli 60% bittersweet chips in my chocolate chip cookie recipe. The taste is incredible and the cookies disappear fast.
angelgirl94 at 3:27PM on 09/21/09
Sign me up for Ghirardelli's bittersweet. I've also used Guittard with great results. Nestle's Toll House are not wretched, considering they're milk "chocolate." They have a pleasant aroma, texture and taste - but I wouldn't use any other milk chips. I haven't found any that taste like chocolate.
What about those huge "chocolate chunks" sold? If they tasted better, I'd use them instead of cutting chunks when I need chunks.
As for white chocolate - bleah. It tastes and feels like pure sweet fat in the mouth and bears no resemblance to chocolate.
therealchiffonade at 10:10AM on 09/22/09
Chew on that, I'm happy to share with you the site for Jacques Torres's chocolate disks (or feves): http://www.mrchocolate.com/detail.aspx?id=58
Also, here's his recipe for the NY Times chocolate chip cookies: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/dining/091crex.html?_r=1
After reading all these delicious comments, chocolate chunk, chocolate chip, Valrhona, Ghirardelli, Guittard,.... I WANT A WARM CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RIGHT NOW!!!
smd1227 at 9:40AM on 11/18/09