chocolate chips
Also known as: mini chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips
Small, pre-formed pieces of chocolate, most often semi-sweet, engineered to hold their shape at baking temperatures rather than fully melting flat -- which is exactly why they're less than ideal for recipes that want fully melted, smooth chocolate, like a candy coating or ganache, where a bar or disc of melting chocolate behaves better. Mini chips melt a bit more readily than standard-size chips, given their smaller size.
Buying guidance
For melting into a smooth coating or sauce, mini chips work better than standard-size chips, since their smaller size melts more evenly; a bar of melting or baking chocolate, chopped, melts more smoothly still. For baking into cookies or muffins, standard chips are the norm and hold their shape as intended.
Substitutions
- A chopped chocolate bar of the same sweetness level -- melts more smoothly than chips, which contain stabilizers that resist melting.
- Chocolate chunks -- larger, less uniform pieces; melt similarly to chips but leave bigger pockets of chocolate in baked goods.
- Cacao nibs plus sugar -- a from-scratch approximation, more work and a coarser texture.
Tips & common mistakes
Trying to melt standard chocolate chips into a fully smooth, pourable coating can leave them seizing into a grainy, stiff mass instead, since they're formulated to resist melting -- adding a little fat (butter, oil, or shortening) while melting helps them go fully smooth.
Storage
Keeps for a year or more in a cool, dry place, sealed -- like other chocolate, it can develop a harmless pale "bloom" from temperature swings, which disappears once melted.