CATEGORY
Milk Chocolate Baking Chips
2007 CHEFSBEST® AWARD FOR BEST TASTE WINNER
Nestlé Toll House
What Makes Great Chocolate Chips?
Store-bought chocolate chip cookies just can’t compare with the ones you make in your own kitchen. With fresh-from-the-oven flavor, homemade chocolate chip cookies are an ideal family dessert, not to mention the perfect antidote to a lazy Sunday afternoon. In addition to cookies, chips can be used in chocolate chip pancakes, cheesecake, muffins or scones. Keep them around for your next baking project or sneak a quick handful whenever you need a chocolate fix.
Our chefs define high-quality chocolate baking chips as having a moderate chocolate aroma and a complex aroma character that includes cocoa and dairy notes. Chips should have no off notes that come from processing, packaging or unwholesome ingredients.
An appropriate taste balance is created when a moderately high sweetness is the dominant basic taste, followed by low levels of bitterness.
Moderate chocolate flavor is expected in chocolate baking chips, with a complex array of cocoa and dairy notes that reflect the aroma. There should be no inappropriate flavor off notes from processing or packaging because nothing should detract from the overall chocolate flavor.
When eaten by the handful, high-quality chocolate chips should melt on the palate with a satisfying creaminess. Baked into cookies, the texture should feel somewhat soft when bitten. The dissolve should be quick, delivering a smooth, non-gritty texture, and chocolate shouldn’t linger on the palate for too long.
When baked into a cookie, the chocolate flavor should stand up to the other ingredients within a baked cookie without overwhelming them. Though high-quality chocolate baking chips are a major component in chocolate chip cookies, they should still allow the other flavors to shine.
Product Category Definition
The product judged was defined as pacaged milk chocolate baking chips for the consumer market, not including non-chocolate (butterscotch, white, peanut butter, etc) baking chips, baking chocolate bars or chocolate candy.
Other Leading Brands:
Ghirardelli, Hershey’s Chocolate
ONE-STEP IDEAS
Stir into chilled banana pudding.
Add to pancake or muffin batter.
Toss with nuts and dried fruit for easy trail mix.
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TASTING
TERMINOLOGY
PRODUCT
FUN FACTS
- Massachusetts restaurateur Ruth Graves Wakefield invented the original chocolate chip cookie in 1930.
- Nestle included a small chopping tool with their chocolate bars until they began selling chocolate in chip form in 1939.
- Africa is the world’s largest producer of chocolate.
The ChefsBest Award for Best Taste is awarded to the brand rated highest overall among leading brands by independent professional chefs.
