Chocolate chips are tiny chunks of chocolate. They started selling in 1941 when Nestle and its competitors started selling chocolate in chip form. In the beginning, chocolate chips were made of semi-sweet chocolate. Today varied flavors such as bittersweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, mint chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, and white and dark swirled chocolate chips are used.
The chips find their usage in cookies, pancakes, waffles, cakes, pudding, muffins, crêpes, pies, hot chocolate, and various types of pastry. They are also found in many other retail food products such as granola bars, ice cream, and trail mix. Today American desserts cannot be thought of without chocolate chips. They are also commonly used as a baking ingredient.
Chocolate chips are melted between 104 and 113 °F (40 and 45 °C) and used in sauces and other recipes. The melting process starts at around 90 °F when the cocoa butter in the chips starts to heat. It has to be taken care of that the cooking temperature does not exceed 115 °F (for milk and white) or 120 °F (for dark) or the chocolate will burn. Although suitable, melted chocolate chips are not always suggested as a replacement for melted baking chocolate.
Because most chocolate chips are designed to retain their shape when baking, The chocolate chips contain less cocoa butter than baking chocolate because they are designed to hold on to their shape when baking. This can make them more difficult to work with in melted form. One can also get access to chocolate chips in Europe, Australia and other parts of the world. Nestle and the Hershey Company is amongst the top producers of chocolate chips.
Molding chocolate is a simple process of creating the desired molds in which chocolate is filled and packed. The technique involves taking the melted chocolate and pouring it either directly from measuring cup, spooned, or squirted from a squeeze bottle in order to fill the mold. It has to be taken care of that any air bubbles trapped inside are released. Next, the filled mold is put in a freezer to harden it for 5-10 minutes. Once the chocolate has hardened the mold is removed from the freezer and tipped over on to a plate or cookie sheet. The chocolate pieces pop out immediately.
If they don’t, re-check as to whether the chocolate is properly hardened or else tap gently on the counter to release. While working on a deep mold, it has to be pried a bit more in order to be released. The chocolate pieces should return to room temperature before packaging. Various molds used include heart shaped molds, square and round molds, eye drop molds etc.
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