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Normal sized semi-sweet chocolate chips

Chocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape (similar to a Hershey's Kiss). They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter.

Chocolate chips are a required ingredient for making chocolate-chip cookies, which were invented in 1933 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn near Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar's packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars, but in 1939 they started selling the chocolate in chip (or "morsel") form. The Nestlé brand Toll House is named for the inn.

Originally, chocolate chips were made of semi-sweet chocolate, but today there are many flavors of chips. These include 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. Some candy companies are also working on new flavors such as strawberry and blueberry.

Chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie

Chocolate chips can be used in pancakes, waffles, cakes, muffins, cookies, 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.

Chocolate chips can also be melted and used in sauces and other recipes. The chips melt best at temperatures between 104 and 113°F (40 and 45°C). The melting process starts at around 90°F when the cocoa butter in the chips starts to heat. The cooking temperature must never exceed 115°F (for milk and white) or 120°F (for dark) or the chocolate will burn. Although convenient, melted chocolate chips are not always recommended as a substitute for melted baking chocolate. Because most chocolate chips are designed to retain their shape when baking, they contain less cocoa butter than baking chocolate. This can make them more difficult to work with in melted form.

Chocolate chips have limited uses outside the cooking world. They can be used for decoration (snowmen and the like) but are found more often in the kitchen.

Today, chocolate chips are very popular as a baking ingredient in the United States and the chocolate-chip cookie is regarded as a quintessential American dessert. Chocolate chips are also available in Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world. Nestlé and The Hershey Company are among the top producers of chocolate chips.

• History of Toll House from NestleCafe.com