In the May/June 2009 issue of Cook’s Illustrated, the magazine staff took on the challenge of rating various brands of chocolate chips to try and find the very best for making chocolate chips cookies. In the test, they looked for brands that had a good chocolate flavor and a good amount of cocoa butter in them. Many brands of chocolate chips – especially when you get into less expensive brands – use less cocoa butter than, say, a chocolate bar does. This means that the chips retain their shape more during baking – not necessarily a good thing because it means that you end up with bits of chocolate, not chocolate evenly melted throughout the cookie. Cook’s Illustrated winning chip was Ghirardelli’s 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips for their excellent flavor and great melt. Finishing in a close second were Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Chips, Guittard’s Semisweet Chocolate Chips, Hershey’s Semisweet Chocolate Chips and Ghirardelli’s Semisweet Chocolate Chips. The Nestle Tollhouse chips and chocolate chunks finished at the bottom of the list and were not recommended.
I think that chocolate chips, much like chocolate, are really a matter of personal preference. Of course, it’s great when the chocolate is melting and gooey when a chocolate chip cookie comes out of the oven, but you’re only going to snack on a brand you really like straight out of the bag. I’ve tried just about all of the brands mentioned above and liked them. My current favorite brand is Guittard, but I also regularly (meaning just about always) stock up on Ghirardelli chips and the semisweet chocolate chips from Trader Joe’s, which are made with great chocolate and are a great deal, to boot.
Here are a few more chocolate chip reviews:
Pimp That Snack is a website that exists to celebrate super-sized, homemade versions of popular snacks, as well as to challenge people to get in the kitchen and experiment to blow up whatever candies, cookies and cakes they can. I’ve mentioned the site before and tried two “pimps” mysef: Giant Hostess Cupcake Cake (with recipe) and Giant Animal Cookie (no recipe, just for fun). The general protocol for making a giant snack is using regular cake pans and kitchen equipment, or jerryrigging custom molds, to try and approximate the shape you want to make. I never thought I’d see Williams-Sonoma stocking a cake pan that cut out this part of the snack-pimping process. Their Sandwich-Cookie Cake Pan is designed to produce a cake that looks just like a sandwich cookie (an Oreo, to be specific). It even has the word “cookie” printed in the center of each round and some other detailing that looks very similar to what you’d find on store-bought sandwichcookies.
There are two pans included in the set, and both are actually made of cast aluminum, not of silicone, so you should get a great finished shape from the pan without having to worry about accidentally bending the cake and breaking the design.
When I was a kid, I hated to floss I think that most kids do. These days, I no longer have strong feelings about it, but I do it on a regular basis anyway. If only I had known (or maybe if my parents had know) that a product like Cupcake Dental Floss existed, I might have gotten off to a stronger start much earlier in life. The waxed floss comes in vanilla frosting flavor and is sweet enough to keep your mind off the fact that you’re flossing. You’re left with a sweet, satisfying taste in your mouth – although craving a sweet vanilla cupcake is a potential side effect that the floss can’t guarantee against.
As appealing as the cupcake floss sounds, I have to mention the Breakfast Floss set, as well. It is a trio of flosses, one each in coffee, bacon and waffle flavors. Since they taste just like breakfast, you can floss in the morning before eating without worrying about the usually minty taste of floss interfering with the flavors of the meal. I find that this is especially true for a mint floss/toothpaste-coffee combination, and as a coffee drinker, I’d like to avoid that conflict as much as possible. In fact, I’ll trade away the bacon flavor to someone also getting a set for a second pack of coffee. Any takers?
Thanks for the tip, Emily!
What is the difference between banana bread and banana cake? The most obvious answer is frosting, but I would have to give a little nudge to shape, as well. A good banana bread should have a big banana flavor and should be moist, dense without being too heavy, and tender. A good banana cake should be the same way because those are all features that you want in a banana laden cake, too! I do try to make the cake a little lighter and a little more tender than the bread (mostly because I like to toast the bread and want to make sure it holds together well!) by adding an additional egg and a little additional fat to the recipe.
This particular cake has all of the features I named above. It’s moist, with a great banana flavor, and is both dense and tender. It also uses whole grain flour! White whole wheat flour adds a little bit of that nutty whole grain taste to the cake without making it overly dense or bready – which regular whole wheat flour can sometimes do. If you don’t have white whole wheat, I’d use a combination of all purpose and regular whole wheat for this cake.
I think that this is a great everyday cake to make and snack on. It’s not too sweet and doesn’t use too much frosting – nor is it a time consuming and fussy cake to put together. Vegetable oil and whole grains give it a slight edge in the “heart-healthy” department. And as with all banana breads, it’s a great way to use up some bananas that are laying around and are just slightly past their prime. This cake keeps well for several days when stored in an airtight cake container, so make it on a Sunday and keep it around for the first part of the week. I doubt that it will last past Wednesday!
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