Chocolate chunks substitutes

Any decent eating or baking bar, chopped into irregular pieces with a serrated knife.

Best for

bakery-style cookies, brownies, scones, banana bread, muffins

This is not a compromise, it is the original. A bar contains only cocoa butter as its fat and no stabilisers, so the pieces melt fully and spread into the ribbons and puddles that make a bakery cookie look the way it does. Chop with a serrated knife on a board, rocking rather than pressing, and keep all the fine dust and shards, because that dust melts into the dough and streaks the whole crumb with chocolate, which is half the reason chopped-bar cookies taste more chocolatey than chip ones. Aim for a mix of sizes, from pea-sized to almond-sized. A 60 to 70 percent bar gives the best balance against a sweet dough.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Crushed roasted cocoa beans, unsweetened and permanently crunchy.

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.

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

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.