Dandelion Gourmet Chocolate Chips & Chocolate Chips History
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[13] Dulcey disks from Valrhona. Callebaut makes similar product, which they call Gold, and also a Caramel disk(photo © Valrhona).
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May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Day. Not National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day—that’s August 4th. You can do many things with chocolate chips in addition to baking cookies. We have a bunch of suggestions for you. And we’re going to introduce you to a very special type of chocolate chip from Dandelion Chocolate (photos #9 and #15), and tell you the history of the chocolate chip, and the differernce between chocolate chips and chocolate chunks. First, a little Chocolate 101: > The history of white chocolate (photo #11). >The history of ruby chocolate (photo #12). > The history of Dulcey (blonde) chocolate (photo #13). Chocolate chips are delightfully versatile. Here are just some ways to use them: Baking Is there a difference to using chocolate chips versus chocolate chunks? Yes! Aside from shape, the main differences between chocolate chips and chocolate chunks come down to: Why Bakers chose one over the other: Check the package label to see that you’re buying real chocolate chips. Imitation chocolate chips have vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter (and are less expensive). When you want the best: If they look large in the photo (#9, #15) they are! At one-inch square, from Dandelion Chocolate of San Francisco, they weigh in at a substantial 3.5 grams each. In comparison, a single Nestlé chocolate morsel typically weighs about 1.4 grams/0.05 ounces. (The mini chocolate chips are smaller and their chocolate chunks are larger and weigh more per piece.) To appreciate what Dandelion has achieved. you have to brush up on is origin chocolate: the term used to specify chocolate made from beans from a single origin. In the case of Dandelion, those origins include Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Tanzania, and Uganda. Like all agricultural products, each displays the flavors of its terroir. Just like coffee beans, wine grapes, olive oil, etc. So do you prefer the cacao flavors of South America—fruity and floral—or the flavors of Africa—richer, darker flavors, with notes of cinnamon, fig, and berries? Check the options and decide. > Here’s what you need to know about single origin chocolate. These custom-made pyramid chips were modeled after the hand-piped chips the Dandelion kitchen team would make for the giant cookies sold in their cafés. They used to use chocolate chunks, but one customer, a Tesla engineer named Remy Labesque thought he could come up with something better. In 2020, he shared his idea for a better shape that would function perfectly in a large cookie. He worked with Dandelion to create their signature chip: one inches square at the flat bottom, rising to a peak in the center, that reminds one of a pyramid or diamond. As you can see in photos #9, it’s quite different from the traditional teardrop-shaped chips/morsels. Labesque created a unique pyramid-like structure featuring two tapered edges and a flat bottom. Two of the bottom edges are thin and taper off while the other two are slightly thicker. The engineer explains that this is how the big chips are able to melt evenly. The design wasn’t an aesthetic choice, it was functional. > Head to the company website and do a search, so you can see all five varieties. Chocolate chips were invented by accident in 1937 by Ruth Graves Wakefield, who owned the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. She was making Butter Drop Do cookies—a simple butter cookie recipe that dates to colonial times. She wanted to add chocolate. She cut a Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar into small pieces, expecting the pieces to melt in the oven and create chocolate cookies. Instead, the pieces retained their shape, creating the first chocolate chip cookies—or Toll House cookies, as she named them. The Toll House cookies became popular at the inn, and the recipe began to spread. She published it in a cookbook called “Toll House Tried and True Recipes” in 1936 (you can get a paperback version on Amazon-—photo #14). As the cookies gained popularity, sales of Nestlé’s semi-sweet chocolate bars increased significantly in the New England area. Recognizing the business opportunity, Nestlé approached Wakefield in 1939 to strike a deal. They purchased the rights to use her recipe and the Toll House name on their packaging. In exchange, Wakefield reportedly received: After concluding the deal, Nestlé began producing chocolate chips specifically designed for baking, eliminating the need for consumers to chop chocolate bars themselves. In 1940, they introduced Nestlé Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels. Nestlé’s decision to make chocolate chips in a teardrop or morsel shape rather than the pieces obtained from chopping a chocolate bar was driven by practical considerations: Chocolate chunks, as a distinct square or rectangular product, were first marketed to consumers in the early 1940s to avoid manual chopping. Chunks delivered a more substantial taste and a change from the uniformity of traditional chips. Within a decade or so, chocolate chunks had become a staple in baking aisles In the 1950s and 1960s, chocolate chips and chunks became a staple in American pantries. By the 1970s, Americans were chip-happy enough to market numerous options. Currently, you can find: (Note: Always read the ingredients label. If it contains cocoa butter, it’s chocolate, even if there are no cocoa solids (e.g., white chocolate). Nestlé deliberately called their product morsels. Early recipes, including Wakefield’s original, often described the process as adding “chocolate broken into bits” or “pieces of chocolate.” (By the way, you can get her cookbook—see photo #14.) So who was first to call them “chocolate chips?” There is no aha! moment. The term emerged gradually in popular usage, likely developing organically among home bakers. By the mid-1940s, the term “chocolate chip cookies” was becoming commonplace in cookbooks and newspaper recipe columns. This suggests the term was already in the vernacular. By the 1950s, “chocolate chip cookies” was standard, regardless of whether Nestlé’s Morsels or another brand was used. The second decade of the 21st century saw the introduction of ruby chocolate (photo #12), created by Barry Callebaut in 2017. The pink-hued chocolate is made from specially processed ruby cocoa beans. It has a fruity, slightly tart flavor. Ruby is the first new chocolate category since white chocolate was introduced in the 1930s. (The first dark chocolate bar was introduced in 1847, and milk chocolate in 1875 or 1876.) Here’s more about ruby. Dulcey (photo #13 or blonde, chocolate came earlier, in 2012—an accident caused when a chocolatier left the heater on under white chocolate for too long. See the footnote† for why Dulcey/blonde/gold chocolate isn’t its own category. The new product produces caramel notes, and is so delicious that we wonder what’s next! In the interim, here’s more about Dulcey. It isn’t yet made in chips, but you can purchase the baking disks. |
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________________ *Chocolate from Colombia and Ecuador often exhibits fruity, floral, and subtly sweet flavors, with a focus on Nacional/Arriba cacao beans. In contrast, Ugandan and Tanzanian chocolates tend to be more intense and full-bodied, with richer, darker flavors, including notes of cinnamon, fig, and berries. †Why Ruby chocolate is a 4th category of chocolate but Dulcey isn’t a new category: For almost a century, three categories of chocolate have been recognized: dark, milk, and white chocolate. To be classified as a new category of chocolate, a product must be derived from cacao beans and contain cacao solids and/or cocoa butter and have naturally occurring color and flavor. Both Ruby and Dulcey do that. But Dulcey is essentially caramelized white chocolate, made by heating to develop the flavor. It is not a new bean or extraction method. Dulcey is like toasted white chocolate—delicious and unique, but not a new structure. Thus, it’s a flavor variation of white chocolate, not a new category. One might ask: Isn’t milk chocolate just dark chocolate with milk added—yet milk chocolate is its own category? No, milk chococolate i’s an entirely new structure, not a blend of finished dark chocolate with milk added. In fact, if you added milk to finished dark chocolate, it would seize—it’s chemically incompatible unless emulsified during conching and tempering. So, structurally and legally, milk chocolate is a distinct formulation, and its own category. |
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