Baking chocolate, also referred to as bitter chocolate, cooking chocolate and unsweetened chocolate, is a type of dark chocolate that is prepared for use as an ingredient in baking. While there are so many different types of baking chocolates on the market to choose from, trying to pick the best can be a bit daunting. How do you really know what offers the best flavor? Well, that’s why we’re here to help! We’ve put together a list of the seven best baking chocolate on the market that offer incredible flavor you can find! Whether you’re looking for the best chocolate for baking, the best chocolate for coffee, or the best chocolate to use in general, keep on reading to learn about some of the best baking chocolate!
1. Beryl’s Chocolate
Beryl’s chocolate has a lot of variations but the most popular one is their normal cooking chocolate. It comes with 3 different types of chocolate which are white, milk and dark.
| Cocoa Percentage | Product Code |
| Dark chocolate 19% | L-D19-NV |
| Dark chocolate 17% | L-D17-NV |
| Dark chocolate 12% | L-D12-NV |
| Milk Chocolate 8% | L-M08-NV |
| Milk Chocolate 4% | L-M04-NV |
| White Chocolate Milk Percentage | Product Code |
| White Chocolate min24% | L-W24-NV |
| White Chocolate min20% | L-W20-NV |
Beryl’s chocolate is compound chocolate which contains vegetable fat. Compound chocolates are much more affordable and easier to handle. Most of the bakeries out there that use their chocolate to make baking goods. Beryl’s baking chocolate comes in coin and block form. Beryl’s chocolate coins are much easier to melt and save your time from chopping the block ones. But the beryl’s chocolate block form can be easily used as chocolate decoration like chocolate shavings and save your time from doing your own chocolate decoration.
However, you need to be careful with the white chocolate, because it contains mostly milk and sugar and a very little cocoa solids so be very careful in melting your white chocolate as it easily gets burnt.
2. Van Houten
Van Houten is the OG chocolate brand. Van Houten has come up with different types of chocolate such as dark, milk and white chocolate, couverture (made out of cocoa butter) and compound (made out of vegetable fat), chocolate coins/ button and chocolate block.
Van Houten compound chocolate is easy to use without the need of tempering compared to couverture chocolate. You can use it to create any baking goods with a nice cocoa taste.
Van Houten couverture chocolate has various cocoa percentage chocolate which you can adjust to the bitterness and sweetness of your baking goods. It also has an intense pure cocoa taste and a nicer mouthfeel with the combination of cocoa butter and a shiny glossy appearance that is good as dipping or coating.
Their chocolates are quite the same as other baking chocolates but they are better in making your chocolate set faster. However, same as Beryl’s, their white chocolate consists mostly of milk and sugar with a very little cocoa solids / cocoa butter. Avoid melting too hot for white chocolate as it will seize and easily burn.
3. Callebaut
Callebaut is one of the finest Belgian couverture chocolates and relies everyday on chefs and chocolatiers to create great tasting delights. Callebaut is similar to other baking chocolate, it produces dark, milk and white chocolate with a different cocoa percentage of each chocolate. Cocoa butter in couverture chocolates melting temperature not only gives chocolate a smooth texture but also enhances the confectionery’s nuanced flavours and aromas.
Callebaut chocolate is really good and we love it. It offers the best product outcome but the downside of it is that it is much more expensive than compound chocolates
If you want a really good product but want to save money a little, you can buy in smaller quantities in baking ingredient stores and that would be perfect for you!
4. Valrhona
Valrhona is a french premium chocolate which is one of the most popular chocolate brands in the culinary world. Valrhona focuses mainly on high-grade luxury chocolate marketed for commercial use by chefs as well as for private consumption.They offer a very large range of chocolates. Most of the latest chocolate inventions and chocolate desserts come from the usage of their products. The taste is ultra rich and chocolatey, and if you’re a cacao snob, you’ll be absolutely obsessed. Valrhona even produces vegan chocolates which are very suitable for vegans and it is vegan certified. They are an elite chocolate brand and the price per kg is more expensive compared to Callebaut. You can see it is certainly a premium product.
PRICE ON valrhona5. Patissier Artisan
Patissier Artisan couverture chocolate offers the same purpose like Callebaut, Van Houten and Valrhona. What makes Patissier Artisan different? Different cocoa percentage comes from different countries like the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Peru, African and South America. Each type of chocolate has their own characteristic one level of acidity, nutty flavour, roasted flavour, sweetness, creaminess and many more.
Their 61% cocoa dark chocolate couverture is one of their well known products and it has won the Gold Award in 2020 for the Monde Selection. Patissier Artisan is available at a few bakery supply stores across Malaysia.
6. Dr. Oetker Nona
Nona is the underdog of the chocolates listed here.It is a compound chocolate and made in Malaysia. It is not ready-to-eat chocolate, instead it is a cooking/baking chocolate. As for the quality, it may not be as good as the ones we listed above but it is very affordable and really easy to work with. It does not require any tempering and can be easily stored as it is solid even in room temperature or a slightly warmer environment.You can easily find this product in any grocery stores or baking supply store. If you are a novice, you can try learning to bake chocolate dessert with this as a start. Really full-proof.
7. Felchlin
Felchlin produces genuine Swiss couverture chocolate with only selected raw ingredients such as Swiss milk and cream. Their cacao are mostly from Venezuela and Madagascar which provide quality and various types of couverture chocolate. Most of the baking chocolate contains soy lecithin, but Felchlin has a few formulations without soy which the price can be as expensive as Valrhona. The quality of Felchlin can be as great as Callebaut.
To the average consumer, they would not be able to tell the difference between the different quality of chocolate, even most chefs do not have the ability to tell. Unless you are a master chocolatier or you actually study chocolate for a living, you would not be able to tell the quality difference.
Disclosure: This list was compiled by the team at My Weekend Plan after extensive research and shared opinions to suggest helpful recommendations for the public. The sequence of brands is in no particular order so if you have any other great suggestions too, please email us support@myweekendplan.asia. For more information, kindly refer to our copyright, privacy & disclosure policy.
