Best Reviewed
Baking Chocolate
- Best baking chocolate overall Callebaut Intense Dark Chocolate L-60-40NV *Est. $8
- Best supermarket chocolate Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar *Est. $3
- Best gourmet dark chocolate Valrhona Manjari *Est. $4
- Best unsweetened chocolate Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Pure Dark Chocolate *Est. $9
- Best chocolate chips Guittard Classic Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips *Est. $2
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Best baking chocolate overall
- Best baking chocolate overall
- Good value at 55 cents per ounce
- Has a nice balance of sweetness and bitterness and a rich taste
- Complex, with hints of espresso, caramel and smoke
- Hard to find in stores
- Comes in large, irregular pieces
Cook's Illustrated and Gourmet magazines have both reviewed Callebaut. The report in Cook's Illustrated is based on a tasting of 12 chocolate bars, while Gourmet's review is based on the observations of test cooks in the magazine's kitchens. Cook's tested Callebaut by baking brownies and preparing chocolate pots de crème. We wish more reviewers cooked with chocolate instead of sampling it plain.
The reviews we read concur: Callebaut is the best dark baking chocolate, and it costs less per ounce than most other high-end baking bars. Tasters call it complex and creamy, with a slight aftertaste of caramel. This Belgian chocolate is hard to find in most supermarkets, but many Whole Foods Markets carry it, and it can be mail-ordered. Chopping up a large block of chocolate can be a messy task, so if you're looking for a bar of baking chocolate that's more readily available and easier to chop, reviews point to Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar (*est. $3 for 4 ounces).
Our Sources
1. Cook's Illustrated MagazineDetails/Subscribe
Cook's Illustrated staffers sample 12 dark chocolate bars, each of which contains about 60 percent cacao. Callebaut Intense Dark is among those rated.
Review: Tasting Dark Chocolate, Editors of Cook's Illustrated, Jan. 2008
2. Cook's Illustrated MagazineDetails/Subscribe
Though rendered outdated by Cook's Illustrated's most recent test of dark chocolate, this older report, in which 20 editors taste nine chocolate bars raw, in chocolate sauce and baked into a cake, is still of some value.
Review: Tasting Dark Chocolate, Editors of Cook's Illustrated, Mar. 2004
3. GourmetDetails/Subscribe
Lear, a longtime food editor, discusses the Gourmet test kitchen's favorite chocolates. Callebaut is among them, although she considers it less assertive than others.
Review: The Incredible Lightness of Being, Jane Daniels Lear, Feb. 2002
Baking Chocolate Runners Up:
3 picks by top review sites.
