This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
To know me is to know my love for chocolate. I have published hundreds of Chocolate Recipes since I first started Handle the Heat in 2009.
Yet somehow, in all of that time, I’ve never written a complete guide to chocolate online… until now.

Ready to jump right in?

Free Baking Science Mini-Course!
From cookies that spread to undercooked brownies, this FREE 5-day Baking Science course helps you conquer common baking challenges and make bakery-worthy treats every time.

Sprinkle of Science
Types of Baking Chocolate

Let’s first categorize chocolate by levels of sweetness. Before we do, first understand that the FDA defines chocolate liquor as, “food prepared by finely grinding cacao nibs.” It does not contain alcohol but is instead composed of about 55% cocoa butter and 45% cocoa solids. When you see percentages labeled on chocolate, it refers to the amount of chocolate liquor, or cacao.
Type of Chocolate | % of Chocolate Liquor |
Unsweetened | 100% |
Bittersweet and Semisweet | 35% minimum |
Milk | 10% minimum |
White | 0% |
Unsweetened Chocolate

This is pure chocolate liquor/cacao with no sugar, emulsifiers, flavorings, or milk added. It’s also called baking chocolate.
Best uses: Opt for unsweetened chocolate when you want to control the amount of sweetness in the recipe or add an extra dose of fat for dense and rich textures, such as in my Ultimate Fudgy Brownie recipe.
My favorite: Baker’s Unsweetened Baking Chocolate
Bittersweet and Semisweet Chocolate

Bittersweet chocolate is sweeter than unsweetened but darker and more bitter than semisweet chocolate. There are no U.S. government regulations that distinguish bittersweet from semisweet; both simply must contain at least 35% cacao. Both are actually considered “dark chocolate.”
Generally, bittersweet contains about 70% or more cacao, and semisweet contains about 60%, but this will vary by brand. Anything over 85% cacao is generally too bitter to use in a recipe that calls for bittersweet or semisweet.
Best uses: Semisweet chocolate is my most commonly used chocolate for everything from cookies and cakes to frostings and pies, as you’ll see in many of my chocolate recipes. Bittersweet has its place, too, especially in recipes that contain a lot of sugar, cream, or ingredients that may dilute the chocolate flavor, such as my French Silk Pie.
My favorites: Ghirardelli Bittersweet Baking Bars and Ghirardelli Semisweet Baking Bars or Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate and Bittersweet Chocolate Pound Plus (a great deal if you bake with chocolate often!)
Can I Use Bittersweet in Place of Semisweet? Or Vice Versa?
Substituting bittersweet chocolate for semisweet or vice versa will generally work in most recipes, only affecting the taste. The same can’t be said for swapping other kinds of chocolate.
Milk Chocolate

Milk chocolate must contain at least 10 to 15 percent cacao and is combined with dry milk powder, making it much sweeter and less intense in chocolate flavor than semisweet chocolate.
Best uses: Milk chocolate’s sweetness and mild flavor work well in recipes where a less intense chocolate presence is desired. Working with melted milk chocolate (like for dipping strawberries) can be trickier than dark chocolate due to its high milk-fat content, which makes it more prone to hardening faster and seizing (learn about this below). Its lower melting point makes it more difficult to temper (learn more about tempering chocolate here). If you generally find milk chocolate too sweet but want to make a s’mores-themed recipe, for example, look for a brand where “chocolate” is listed as the first ingredient instead of milk and/or sugar.
My favorite: Endangered Species Milk Chocolate (this bar is creamy smooth, has a more balanced sweetness at 48% cacao, and may even turn milk chocolate haters into lovers!)
Can I Use Milk Chocolate Instead of Semisweet?
Not always. In addition to having very different levels of sweetness, milk chocolate has more added milk and sugar and, therefore, a lower melting point than darker chocolates. It’ll behave differently in recipes.
If it’s just a matter of switching out semisweet chocolate chips for milk chocolate in brownies, cookies, muffins, etc., then all you’ll change is the taste and a bit of the texture. For most other recipes that incorporate melted chocolate, it’s best to stick with the original chocolate called for.
White Chocolate

What is white chocolate? Well, white chocolate is not actually chocolate because it contains no cocoa solids. Good quality white chocolate should contain cocoa butter as the main fat. Its main ingredients are cocoa butter (20 percent minimum), dry milk powder (14 percent), sugar (55 percent maximum), vanilla, and soy lecithin. High-quality white chocolate should be creamy in color.
Best uses: In any recipe that contains a nutty or crunchy element, white chocolate acts as the perfect smooth and milky balance.
My favorite: Ghirardelli Premium Baking White Chocolate Bars.
I have had bad luck baking with Lindt White Chocolate Bars. They melt into an extremely thin, almost oily consistency and burn or seize very easily.
Since white chocolate is most commonly used and available in chip form for baking, below are my favorite white chocolate chips:
- Trader Joe’s White Chocolate Baking Chips
- 365 by Whole Foods Market White Chocolate Chips
- Private Selection White Chocolate Chips (Kroger’s premium brand)
The following brands do not contain cocoa butter*, so I don’t recommend:
- Ghirardelli Premium Baking Classic White Chips
- Nestle Toll House White Chocolate Chips
- Good & Gather White Chocolate Chips (Target’s generic brand)
- Great Value White Baking Chips (Walmart’s generic brand)
- Signature Select White Baking Chips (Safeway’s generic brand)
*At the time of this writing – always double-check the ingredients label on the packaging.
The Different Styles of Baking Chocolate
Couverture Chocolate

This ultra-high-quality chocolate, sold by brands such as Valrhona and Callebaut, has additional cocoa butter added during manufacturing. Very specific styles of chocolate, including cacao percentages, origins, and varying viscosities, are available in this format for artisan chocolate and confectionary making. Couverture typically comes in a wafer form, making it very easy to melt. It’s expensive, not typically found at standard grocery stores, and is preferred among pastry chefs.
An in-between option available to the consumer is Guittard Chocolate Wafers, which you can find in stores like Whole Foods, Sprouts, other specialty or high-end grocery stores, or on Amazon.
Best uses: Since it melts down ultra-smooth but is quite expensive, couverture is best reserved for dipping or decorating with chocolate, like in candy-making applications. It’s also ideal when tempering chocolate.
Coating Chocolate

Also called compound chocolate, coating “chocolates” are used in home candy making. They come in various colors and don’t require tempering to hold their formed shape after being melted. This is not real chocolate because the cocoa butter has been replaced by other fats.
Best uses: Since this isn’t actually real chocolate, its only use is in decorative applications where flavor isn’t the primary focus.
Chocolate Chips

Available in dark, milk, and white chocolate, many chips on the market are actually imitation chocolate, which contains no cocoa butter. In these varieties, the cocoa butter has been replaced by hydrogenated oil, so the chips hold their shape and are cheap to manufacture. Other stabilizers and additives are also used to help the chips retain their shape even after being baked (think Chocolate Chip Cookies).
Best uses: Add chocolate chips as a mix-in to a dough or batter, such as cookies or muffins.
My favorite chocolate chips: Ghirardelli Premium Baking Semisweet Chocolate Chips.
Can I Use Chocolate Chips in Place of Baking Chocolate?
Sometimes. Chocolate chips won’t always melt down as smoothly as freshly chopped baking chocolate due to some of the added ingredients that help to keep their chip shape during baking (think chocolate chip cookies). For that reason, if ultra-smooth chocolate is an important part of your recipe outcome, such as for dipping anything in chocolate or whipping frostings, you’ll want to stick with baking chocolate for best results.
How to Store Chocolate
Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark, dry place. The darker the chocolate, the longer it’ll keep, with unsweetened and bittersweet keeping for up to 2 years in these conditions. If it’s humid, warmer than 75°F, or exposed to odors, it will go bad faster. Milk chocolate and white chocolate will go bad faster.
Avoid storing chocolate in the fridge. Doing so may allow the fat in the chocolate to absorb odors from the fridge and also weaken its chocolate flavor.
Does Chocolate Go Bad?
Pure dark chocolate doesn’t contain water, so it does not grow bacteria or mold the same way other less shelf-stable foods can (this isn’t always true of filled or flavored chocolates or chocolates with other ingredients, like nuts added in). Chocolate may bloom when exposed to less-than-ideal conditions (see below) but generally is safe to eat even after the sell-by date so long as there are no obvious signs of spoilage, such as mold or a foul odor.
What is Bloomed Chocolate? Can I Still Eat It?

There are typically three causes of chocolate bloom:
- If chocolate is stored in an environment that’s too warm or too moist, it may develop a harmless white-gray coating or film on top called “bloom.”
- If the chocolate is exposed to moisture in the air, some of the sugar from within the chocolate will dissolve. Once that moisture evaporates again, it’ll leave behind a fine film of sugar called “sugar bloom.”
- If chocolate is stored at too high a temperature (generally, anything above 75°F), tiny amounts of fat will melt and float to the surface, forming a white-gray film called “fat bloom.”
Whichever the cause, bloomed chocolate is safe to eat and will taste the same. It is fine to bake with, but when melted and used for coating (such as for Chocolate Covered Strawberries), it’ll maintain the same gray coating once dried again or may be more prone to seizing.
How to Melt Chocolate

Start by finely chopping your chocolate, preferably using a serrated knife. Smaller pieces will melt more quickly and evenly. To avoid scorching the chocolate, which makes it inedible, choose one of the below methods:
- Microwave Method: Place the chocolate in a microwave-safe glass container and heat in 20-second bursts, stirring between each burst, until just melted and smooth. If your microwave tends to scorch chocolate, turn it to 50% power before heating.
- Stovetop Method: Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl (tempered glass or stainless steel) over a saucepan filled with an inch of simmering water. The bowl of chocolate should not touch the water. Heat until the chocolate melts, stirring often. Make sure no steam adds moisture to the chocolate (see why below).
- Repeat the same process for melting chocolate chips; no need to chop beforehand!
How to Avoid Seizing Chocolate

If you’ve ever melted chocolate only to have it become stiff and grainy, it likely came into contact with a tiny amount of moisture. It’s imperative that all of your equipment, even your hands, are completely dry before touching, chopping, and melting chocolate to avoid it seizing. Even a single drop of water can ruin an entire batch of melted chocolate.
Cocoa Powder vs. Baking Chocolate

Cocoa powder often delivers a more concentrated chocolate flavor in baking because it’s made from pure cocoa solids. It contains much less fat than baking chocolate and no sugar. Whereas melted chocolate will add fat and moisture to a recipe, cocoa powder will boost the chocolate flavor but also zap some of the moisture.
This is why it can sometimes take the place of flour, such as in Brownies with little flour or, in a more dramatic example, my Flourless Chocolate Cake. Generally speaking, cocoa powder in baking will lend a chewy texture and intense chocolate flavor, whereas melted chocolate will add a fudgy, dense texture and more mild flavor.
Types of cocoa powder fall into two different categories – learn more about Dutch vs. Natural Cocoa Powder here. Fat content in cocoa powders can differ greatly between brands, which also impacts your baking – learn more about the fat in cocoa powder here.

More Science of Chocolate:
Chocolate Recipes You’ll Love:
Photos by Joanie Simon.
Wow. So darn informative! Cant thank you enough. Earl Williams, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Each and everytime I bake with cocoa powder the middle of my cakes sink in the middle. I realize this is normal since cocoa powder doesn’t have the structure to support the cake. The cake is done as I’ve tested with a toothpick and some crumbs adhere and the cake has pulled away from the sides. Any suggestions you might have I would appreciate. Thank you!
Thanks for all the tips