Elinor Klivans - The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook: Recipes from the Classic Cookie to Mocha Chip Meringue Cake

To Jeff, my best friend forever
To the memory of our friend Larry Levitan, who lived his life to the fullest

Judith Weber, my agent, who makes it happen. A giant thank-you to the brilliant publishing team at Chronicle Books, especially Bill LeBlond, my editor, who is a great pleasure to work with, and Amy Treadwell, associate editor, who takes the absolute best care of my books. Bill and Amy make writing my books such fun. Kirsten Strecker, photographer, whose photos understand and illustrate the appeal and the fun of these desserts. Prop stylist Megan Hedgpeth and food stylist Susan Sugarmann, who took such care to make my desserts look exactly right. Judith Sutton, copy editor, who understands just what I am trying to say and makes it clear. My husband, Jeff, the chief taster, who always knows how to make it better. My daughter, Laura, the encourager, and my son-in-law, Michael, the listener. My son, Peter, and my daughter-in-law, Kate, who bake and cook together and truly enjoy chocolate and the chips. My grandchildren, Charlie, Madison, Max, Sadie, and Kip, who are already baking and decorating with chips. My mother, who baked my first chocolate chip cookie, and my father, who scoops the ice cream to go with the chocolate chip desserts.

Thank you to the chocolate chip testers who tested so many recipes: Jennifer Goldsmith, Melissa McDaniel, Rachel Ossakow, Dawn Ryan, Louise Shames, Kate Steinheimer, and Laura Williams.

A big thank-you to my circle of supporters and encouragers: Melanie Barnard, Flo Braker, Sue Chase, Susan Dunning, Natalie Dworken, Carole and Woody Emanuel, Barbara Fairchild, Rosalee and Chris Glass, Karen and Michael Good, Kat and Howard Grossman, Helen and Reg Hall, Carolyn and Ted Hoffman, Pam Jensen and Stephen Ross, Kristine Kidd, Alice and Norman Klivans, Susan Lasky, Robert Laurence, Rosie Levitan, Gordon Paine, Joan and Graham Phaup, Janet and Alan Roberts, Louise and Erv Shames, Barbara and Max Steinheimer, Kathy Stiefel, Elaine and Wil Wolfson, and Jeffrey Young.

Ever since I tasted my first chocolate chip cookie, baked by my mother, I have been hooked on chocolate chips and any dessert that includes them. That chocolate chip cookie was the beginning of a lifetime spent preparing for this book. I have never tired of that original cookie, and I am always on the lookout for new ideas and creative ways to use chocolate chips. Check out the supermarket baking section and you will notice that the chocolate chip selection expands every year. There are a lot of other chocolate chip fans out there.

It is no surprise that so many of us love chocolate chips and chocolate chip desserts. A recipe that calls for a package of chips immediately seems familiar, comfortable, and doable. There are semisweet, bittersweet, milk, and white chocolate chips in various sizes that melt easily and eliminate having to chop chocolate. Chocolate chip ideas continue to spring forth. I use them in bars, cakes, pies, sauces, frostings, puddings, and muffins. Chocolate chips can add nuggets of chocolate to every bite of a chocolate cake, cheesecake bar, or crisp meringue. Melted or soft chocolate chips add a rich flavor to frostings, glazes, mousse, chocolate cream pie, and a hot brownie sundae cake. They make desserts better. When my agent, Judith Weber, said, You are going to enjoy writing this book, she knew what she was talking about. I enjoyed every bite of testing (too much sometimes) and writing about a baking ingredient that I enjoy so much. From the Kitchen-Sink Chocolate Chip Cookies to the Chocolate Chip CookieCookie Dough Ice Cream Bombe, this has been a sweet labor of chocolate chip love.

I have a very pleasant way to choose the brands of chocolate chips to use in my desserts: I taste them. I buy several kinds of semisweet, milk, and white chocolate chips and try each group separately. Talk about fun testing! A side-by-side tasting of chocolate chips will reveal that each brand of chocolate chips has its own unique flavor. What tastes best to me is the one I choose. I look for a strong flavor of chocolate, rather than sugar, to dominate. With white chocolate chips, I make sure cocoa butter is listed in the ingredients and I look for the subtle chocolate taste that cocoa butter lends. Some white chocolate chips are actually white chocolate coating and do not contain any cocoa butter. Below is a list of my favorite chips in order of preference.

Semisweet chocolate chips
Guittard, Nestl, Nestl Dark, Hersheys Dark, Ghirardelli

Miniature semisweet chocolate chips
Guittard, Nestl

Milk chocolate chips
Guittard, Ghirardelli

White chocolate chips

Guittard, Barry Callebaut

Miniature white chocolate chips
Barry Callebaut

Bittersweet chocolate chips
Ghirardelli, Nestl

Semisweet chocolate chips are available in regular and miniature sizes. A 12-ounce bag of semisweet chocolate chips, regular or miniature size, equals 2 cups. Bittersweet, milk, and white chocolate chips usually come only in regular size. Bags of bittersweet, milk, or white chocolate chips weigh only 11 ounces but equal 2 cups. Regular-size chips are generally used for cookies, cakes, and pies. Miniature chocolate chips work well in frozen and creamy desserts and for studding a crumb crust with lots of bits of chocolate. Bittersweet chips have less sugar in proportion to chocolate and are a good choice for melting and for using in frostings, glazes, fudge sauces, and truffles. But none of these are hard-and-fast rules, just suggestions of what I find works best. If you are out of semisweet miniature chips, use the regular size. Bittersweet chips can always be substituted for semisweet.

Ghirardelli bittersweet chips are labeled as having a 60 percent chocolate content, and Nestl bittersweet chips as having a 62 percent chocolate content. But for the remainder of chocolate chips made in the United States, companies keep their formulas secret and do not reveal the chocolate content. However, government guidelines require semisweet chocolate chips to have a chocolate content of at least 15 percent, and milk chocolate chips, 10 percent. To be labeled as white chocolate chips, chips must include cocoa butter. When a package is labeled white chips, rather than white chocolate chips, there is probably no cocoa butter in the chips.

Chocolate chips are best stored in a cool, dry place at between 60F. and 75F. for no longer than 3 months. Milk chocolate chips and white chocolate contain milk solids and are more perishable than dark chocolate chips; for these, 1 month is the limit. This all assumes that the chocolate chips were fresh when they were bought. A pantry or cabinet (not near the oven) is a good storage choice. Sometimes, especially in the heat of summer, you will see that a whitish film has formed on chocolate chips. This is chocolate bloom and results when chocolate chips have been stored at too high a temperature. Bloom does not affect the taste of the chocolate chips, and when they are used in baking, their good chocolate color returns. But if you meet me in my supermarket on a summer day, you will find me checking through the bags of chips to find those that do not have bloom.