Chocolate Chunks substitute

Substitutes for Chocolate Chunks with ratios

1. 2Feves, pistoles or chocolate discs

   Different texture

   Use the same amount by weight

   Flat coin-shaped pieces of couverture-style chocolate sold for melting, which also work beautifully as an inclusion.

   What changes

   Best for

   bakery-style cookies, pain au chocolat, brownies, cookie bars, scones

   Arguably better than chunks and no work at all. Because they are flat, discs melt into wide thin sheets rather than blobs, so a cookie made with them has visible layers of chocolate running through it and a completely different bite: you get a smear of melted chocolate across the whole mouthful instead of one pocket. They are usually high-quality chocolate with a high cocoa butter content, which means they stay soft and glossy for a good while out of the oven. The only downside is price. Stack a few on top of each dough ball before baking for the classic look.

2. 3Chocolate chips

   Different texture

   Use the same amount by weight, with half of them chopped coarsely

   Standard baking chips, the everyday substitute, adjusted to get closer to the chunk effect.

   What changes

   Best for

   cookies, muffins, pancakes, banana bread, granola bars

   The flavour of the finished bake will be near identical, so this is a texture and appearance question rather than a taste one. Chips are made with less cocoa butter and with added emulsifiers so they hold that teardrop shape through a hot oven, which is useful in a muffin and a disadvantage in a cookie, where you want the chocolate to melt and spread. Expect neat discrete dots, a drier-looking crumb between them and less chocolate flavour running through the dough. Chopping half the bag roughly gets you part of the way, since the broken edges melt where the intact chips do not. Underbaking by a minute keeps them soft rather than set.

3. 4Chopped supermarket chocolate bars, milk or dark

   Taste and texture differ

   Use the same amount by weight, and reduce the recipe's sugar by 2 tbsp per cup if using milk chocolate

   Ordinary confectionery bars from the candy aisle, chopped up, including leftover holiday chocolate.

   What changes

   Best for

   cookies, brownies, blondies, muffins, rocky road

   Completely legitimate and often what is actually in the house. Milk chocolate bars are the thing to watch: they contain far more sugar and milk solids and less cocoa, so they melt very softly, almost to a caramel-like consistency, and they make the finished cookie noticeably sweeter and milder, which is why cutting a couple of tablespoons of sugar from the dough helps. Dark bars behave like proper chunks. Filled bars with caramel, nougat or biscuit inside work too but will leak, so chop them larger and expect messier, wetter pockets. Chill the dough if you are using anything very soft.

4. 5Cacao nibs, as part of the total

   Taste and texture differ

   No more than ⅓ of the total weight, with chunks or chips making up the rest

   Crushed roasted cocoa beans, unsweetened and permanently crunchy.

   What changes

   Best for

   cookies, granola bars, energy balls, brownie toppings

   Included with a warning, because people reach for nibs assuming they are just small chunks. They are pure cocoa bean with no sugar and no added cocoa butter, so they never melt and they never soften, staying hard and crunchy like a bitter roasted nut. Used as a full replacement they make a cookie taste harsh and oddly savoury and give a gritty bite. Used for a third of the total, alongside real chocolate, they add pleasant crunch and a deep roasted bitterness that plays well against sweet dough. They also contain caffeine, as all cocoa products do.

5. 6Carob chips or caffeine-free chips

   Taste and texture differ

   Use the same amount by volume, and reduce the recipe's sugar by 1 to 2 tbsp per cup

   Caffeine-free carob baking chips standing in where cocoa is being avoided.

   What changes

   Best for

   caffeine-free cookies, muffins, granola bars, snack bars

   The option if the reason you are substituting is avoiding chocolate rather than shopping. Carob chips are sweeter and milder than any chocolate and taste malty and date-like rather than bittersweet, so the cookie reads as a caramel or toffee cookie instead of a chocolate one, which is why trimming the dough's sugar helps. Most carob chips are made with palm or another vegetable fat rather than cocoa butter, so they melt at a lower temperature and tend to smear into streaks rather than holding as pools, and they set slightly soft. Chill the dough for half an hour if you want defined pieces.