Types of Chocolate for Baking

What are the types of chocolate?

There are so many different types of chocolate for baking: baking bars, chocolate chips, melting chocolate. This post is going to talk about what they all are and what they’re good for.

Flavors of chocolate are all about percentage: the percentage of cacao vs sugar and how much milk solids there are.

1. Unsweetened Chocolate which is 100% cacao and no sugar. You don’t want to eat it plain! This chocolate is has a darker color than all the others.
2. Bittersweet Chocolate, which is around 70% cacao and 30% sugar (also called dark chocolate).
3. Semisweet Chocolate has around 60% cacao and 40% sugar and is also called dark chocolate.
4. Milk Chocolate has under 40% cacao but also contains milk fats and sometimes vanilla.
5. White Chocolate has no cacao at all and often isn’t considered “real” chocolate!
6. Blonde Chocolate is white chocolate that has been cooked at a low temperature to caramelize the sugars and milk (like when you brown butter). It’s a light beige in color and has a deeper flavor.
7. Ruby Chocolate is the newest type of chocolate. It’s made from ruby cocoa beans grown in Ecuador and has a pale pink hue. It’s said to have a sweet, fruity taste with sour notes. It’s about 47% cacao and 26% milk.

Baking Bars

Also called baking squares, baking bars are chocolate you use for baking. These aren’t usually bars you’d eat (i.e. a candy bar). Baking bars are usually melted and added to brownies or other recipes.

You’ll find baking bars in the baking aisle of the grocery store, usually on the top shelf. They come in Unsweetened, Semi-Sweet, White and often German Chocolate (which I think of as close to milk chocolate). The mainstream brands you’ll find in regular grocery stores are Bakers and Ghiradelli. They’re more of a high-quality chocolate that will taste better in recipes.

Baking bars are great for melting and adding to recipes or chopping and adding in place of chocolate chips. They’re also great for dipping chocolate covered strawberries or shortbread and will give a nice glossy finish when dried.

Chocolate Chips

Chocolate chips are the most common form of chocolate. These are sold in the baking aisle and come in lots of different flavors, and they often come as “chunks” instead of chips. I use these in my Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.

There are too many brands of chocolate chip to list, but I highly recommend buying one of four brands: Ghiradelli, Guittard, Nestle, or Trader Joe’s. I do not recommend store brand chocolate chips – especially if you’re going to melt them.

Chocolate Chips have a stabilizer in them to keep them from melting completely in the oven – that’s what makes them stay chips – and when they are melted they tend to be a bit cloudy, so they’re not recommended for dipping or bark or things like that.

When adding chocolate chips to recipes, most of the time the flavor doesn’t matter. As long as you’re not melting the chocolate chips into a recipe (i.e. ganache) you can use milk, semi-sweet, bittersweet and white chocolate chips interchangeably in recipes.

Melting Wafers/Candy Melts

There are two different kinds of melting wafers: chocolate and colorful.

Chocolate Melting Wafers are small disk-like pieces of chocolate that are preferable for melting (over chocolate chips) because they have no stabilizers in them. These are great for dipping truffles and candy or whenever you need to melt chocolate for baking, like when making easy chocolate bark.

Mostly they come in semi-sweet and white chocolate flavor and are sold in the baking aisle of the grocery store where you find the baking bars. The most common melting wafer you’ll find is Ghirardelli brand (or store brands, if you’re shopping at Walmart). They come in pouches or sometimes a contained cup you can melt in.

Do not confuse chocolate melting wafers with the “chocolate” melts you get in the craft aisle or at the craft store (i.e. Wilton brand). While those melts do have a chocolate “flavor” they aren’t chocolate in the sense of the kind you find in the baking aisle.

Chocolate melts are more often colorful and perfect for making candy or truffles when you want that colorful exterior – but the flavor isn’t deep and rich like true chocolate. If you’re making something chocolatey – stick to the kind in the baking aisle.

Almond Bark or Candiquik

Also in the baking aisle are large blocks of chocolate that are engineered for melting and dipping, often referred to as almond bark.

Almond Bark isn’t a thing – it’s a brand. Same with Candiquik – these are brands of melting chocolate. These products are perfect for dipping truffles and pretzels, etc., because they melt smooth and without issue. These blocks are on par with the melts described above, but just a different shape. You’ll also see store brands of this as well. All of them live on that top shelf, alongside the melts and bars.

Of all the block melting chocolate like these, Candiquik is the best tasting, Almond Bark second. Don’t even bother with the store brand! Candiquik also comes in a handy tray you can use for melting.