SCHARFEEN BERGER Baking Chocolate Chunks, Bittersweet, 6 Ounce (Pack of 5)

I use these in my super easy Vegan Chocolate chip cookies! I missed my cookies so much after I found out I was allergic to all dairy and eggs. So much of my diet had to change. UGH, but these Oat milk Chocolate chunks are the best! And the coconut sugar these are made with give them a more layered flavor. These are my favorite in the easy cookies. Cookie recipe for these chunks! Dry Ingredients 1 Cup Flour of choice 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 cup white sugar of choice 1/4 dark brown sugar (I used a turbinado sugar when I ran out and it was almost the same.) 1/3 Cup Scharffen Berger Baking Chocolate Chunks Oat milk ( I use a bit more than 1/3) Wet Ingredients 2 Tbsp of vegan butter melted 2 Tbsp of Plant milk of choice 1 tsp vanilla extract Mix dry ingredients together, mix wet ingredients together. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir or mix with hands till it form a cookie dough consistency. If its not coming together add plant milk a tsp at a time, you don't want to make the dough too wet. Refrigerate over night and place balls of cookie dough on a baking sheet and bake at 350F for 12 - 15 mins. You may or may not have to push them down with the back of a spoon when they come out of the oven. I only have to do this when I make the dough a little too dry. But they are still somehow amazing! I usually make about 12 - 14 cookies depending on how big I make them. But this is an easy recipe to experiment with. The refrigeration is key, although sometimes I just make the dough into balls right out of the bowl and freeze those immediately to have ready to bake cookies one or two at a time. And with these chunks you will want more than 2!

For me, the only use for this is baking or making chocolate sauces out of it. It's just too bitter to eat plain and it doesn't really taste much until your mouth melts it. That is, if you chew it up, it's pretty much tasteless until it melts in your mouth. At that point, however, it's just too bitter for me. I made a chocolate sauce with cream and a little sugar and it was wonderful over ice cream, and even just plain (the little bit of sugar cuts the bitterness a lot). By the way, be prepared to chop the pieces. As is, they are a little large for anything, unless you're just going to melt them in a double boiler.

I have a favorite, tweaked chocolate chip cookie recipe that I have been using for years. I like them chewy in the centers, but still a little crisp on the edges. Not cakey, not flat. I have been using Nestle semi-sweet chips for years and they are adequate. I really like the flavor of Scharffen Berger bars, so I knew these would be good. Actually, I like the "rich milk" type the best...and I am a dark-chocolate lover! I didn't want to use that though in cookies because I feared the 41% cacao might melt too much; these chunks are 62%. Regular baking chips have less cocoa butter in them to withstand oven heat and still retain their shape. They aren't good for melting though for other uses. These do melt, so I wasn't sure how my cookies would fare. I ended up deciding to use half of these and half nestle (one for melty flavor and one for shape.) My cookies did taste AMAZING, however, they spread too much.The cookies had a nice smear of chocolate from these, and still some visible chips from the Nestles. They didn't spread so much that they were one giant cookie, but enough that they were quite fragile removing from the pan and kind of thin to hold. I imagine it was from the additional cocoa butter melting and thinning out the dough slightly (I am no chemist, just a guess.) I don't know if I would have used ALL this type (instead of half and half) what would have happened. I will have to re-experiment to maybe lessen the amount of fat (butter/shortening/egg) in my recipe or raise the amount of dry ingredients (or even a long chill in the fridge first) to regain my desired texture. I haven't done so yet, but I imagine these would be great for recipes using melted chocolate (like cake or brownies) rather than that weird "baking chocolate" stuff. I just wanted to post that if you are using these for chocolate chip cookies you have made with other chips, be prepared for possible changes in your finished product. I will update my review after I figure out what percentage of "typical" recipes need to change (if I DO figure it out that is!)

Bought this because I wanted quality chocolate and so I wouldn't have to chop up bars to get chunks. Pretty spendy but it seems all chocolate is right now :/ When I opened the first bag, I was not happy with the chalky color. I decided to take a chance and use them anyway as it was my only opportunity that week to bake. Also not happy that what were billed as "chunks" were cut bars. And not cut very nicely or well. Arrgh! I ended up cutting/chopping up three bags for my biscotti after all. All this being said, the chocolate flavor in the finished cookies is fantastic! You can see that the chocolate is nice and dark in the cookie. That is why I gave 4 stars :)

Schaffen Berger was bought by Hershey in 2005 and in 2021 again became a privately held company. The quality is not the same as it was before Hershey bought it, but it still has a premium price. The chocolate chunks I received were old, covered with a white power of sorts, and looking like milk chocolate, revealing an inferior chocolate of considerable age. Needless to say the taste was off-putting, bitter and unpleasant.

This chocolate is way above any standard chocolate chips. You can purchase at your grocery store. Blows Ghirardelli out of the water and the price per pound isn’t that bad when comparing. If you like dark chocolate, highly recommend the 70%. We use it in our baked goods for hot chocolate for fudge and it’s definitely worth the small extra cost.

This is a premium ingredient that will elevate your recipes and surprise your guests. This yellow bag is the one to get for chocolate chip cookies. it's also easy to melt these with a little cream in the microwave little by little. Once you have this brand of chocolate, you'll be ruined for the cheaper stuff.

The maple flavor is really not there at all. I tested it with several recipes and ate a chunk or two myself. Chocolate flavor is all right; much better standing on its own.