Barry Callebaut Semisweet Chocolate Chunks, reviewed

Barry Callebaut is one of the finest chocolate makers in the world, and one of the largest, even though you may not have heard of it. The company has been around since 1850 and has been focused on chocolate for the last century. The reason that you may not have heard of this Belgian chocolate company is that their products are often sold directly to chefs, bakers and chocolatiers for food service use, and they are also rebranded and sold under other company names. With an increased interest in finding high quality cooking ingredients for home chefs, their bulk products have become more widely available to consumers. I spotted a box of Barry Callebaut Semisweet Chocolate Chunks on the shelf at Williams Sonoma the other day, one of the few non-bulk, Callebaut-branded products that I’ve seen marketed directly to consumers! Naturally, I had to pick up a box (they also make milk chocolate).

These chocolate chunks are delicious. They have a rich chocolate taste, a clear note of vanilla and a great texture that isn’t too hard. The chunks are about the size of chocolate chips and are irregularly shaped, which gives them a very attractive look in cookies, and they also hold up very well to baking. This version of Callebaut chocolate is more expensive than the bulk chocolate I’ve bought from their brand, but it does already come chopped up into perfectly sized pieces and is ready to use right out of the box, with a recipe for chocolate chip cookies printed on the back of the box. They are definitely some of my favorite chocolate chips and I’ll use them again but probably keep buying the bulk blocks of Callebaut chocolate to chop up myself, too!