Chocolate Chips are small drops of chocolate about 1/4 inch (6 mm) round, though they also come in mini and large sizes.
The chocolate used in making them can be semisweet, bittersweet or unsweetened, milk, mint (the chocolate is flavoured with peppermint extract) or white chocolate.
For the best quality, look at the ingredients on the package to see how high up on the list “chocolate liquor” is listed.
Cooking Tips
Chocolate Chips retain their shape when “melted”.
Some food writers advise not to swap Chocolate Chips in for recipes that call for regular cooking chocolate to be melted, as the chips were meant to hold their shape, and when you force them to melt beyond that the chocolate becomes grainy and hard to work with. They neglect the minor fact, however, that there are a zillion recipes that call for you to melt Chocolate Chips. In fact, most people who’ve blithely done it haven’t come across any life-changing challenges in doing so. To melt, melt over a double-boiler or (easier, less fuss) in a microwave. They melt more easily if you put in with them some of a liquid that your recipe calls for, such as milk or syrup.
Substitutes
Carob chips; chopped cooking chocolate.
Equivalents
1 cup = 6 oz by weight = 175g
Storage Hints
Store in a sealed container for up to 4 months.
History Notes
Nestlé was the first to market Chocolate Chips in 1939. They bought the name “Toll House” from Ruth Wakefield, in Massachusetts, who had been making what she called “Toll House Cookies” with chopped up chocolate. Nestlé has sold the “Toll House” Chocolate Chips in a yellow bag since 1939.
In 1940, as the world went to war, the United States was discovering all the various desserts that could be made with chocolate chips:
“If your family cares at all for chocolate, you will be interested in the new chocolate chip cookery. The crisp cookies, carrying bits of chocolate and nuts, served at Toll House, Ruth Wakefield’s inn near Whitman, Mass., seems to have started the rage. The fame of the cookies spread and with it the demand for the semi-sweet chocolate, an important ingredient.
The list of chocolate chip specialties includes cookies of different kinds, ice-box crisps, kisses, macaroons, nut squares, nut bread, layer cake, cottage pudding, frosting, puddings, ice cream and waffles.
The semi-sweet chocolate manufactured for chocolate chip cookery does not melt during baking. It can be bought in cakes or in the form of tiny drops.” — Dorris, Nancy. Nancy’s Daily Dish for the Busy Housewife. New York, New York: Daily News. Tuesday, 16 April 1940. Page 34, col. 2.