The Best White Chocolate Chips, According to Test Kitchen Bakers
Updated: Feb. 18, 2024
Looking for the best white chocolate for your recipes? These are the baking chips you should be buying according to the pros in our Test Kitchen.
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Sure, we all love chocolate chip cookies packed with semi-sweet chocolate chips, but sometimes we want to make our recipes a bit more interesting with different kinds of baking chips, especially sweet and creamy white chocolate chips.
But finding the best white chocolate for your favorite sweet treats isn’t as simple as it seems. Some white chocolate brands are too sweet or taste too artificial, and you don’t want that to mess with the perfection that is these double-chocolate brownies. So to find the best white chips for your bakes, our Test Kitchen put nine brands to the test.
How We Found the Best White Chocolate Chips
That’s right: nine brands of white chocolate chips were sampled in a blind test by our Test Kitchen crew. Each tester, all pro cooks and bakers, sampled the chips with these qualities in mind:
- Flavor:Â How does the white chocolate chip taste? Is it sweet? Does it have notes of vanilla, caramel or butterscotch? Are the flavors well balanced?
- Texture:Â What is the texture of the chip like? Is it smooth and creamy?
- Melt-ability: Sometimes you want chips to melt (like when you’re making candies—Peanut Butter Snowballs, anyone?) and sometimes you want chocolate chips to be more substantial. There’s no right or wrong for this category, but our Test Kitchen knows it’s worth noting the following: How easily do the chips melt? Do they melt down smoothly?
- Appearance:Â How do the chips look? Are they uniformly shaped? Are they pure white or more buttery in color?
Our Test Kitchen-Preferred White Baking Chips
This sweet test revealed a few winners. See our Test Kitchen’s picks for the best white chocolate chips.
The Best Overall: Ghirardelli Classic White Chips
Getting the right balance of flavor is crucial in recipes and in the ingredients we use in those recipes. Our Test Kitchen found that Ghirardelli Classic White Chips really mastered the perfect balance of sweetness, creaminess and taste that we all want from white chocolate chips.
These Ghirardelli chips were creamy and melted right in our testers’ mouths. This great texture had our team dreaming of all the delicious ways to use the chips, like in these white chocolate cheesecake cups and cranberry scones.
What really had our Test Kitchen crew raving was the flavor here. These Ghirardelli chips weren’t overly sweet (as many white chocolate chips can be); instead, caramel and cream flavors really took center stage. The spot-on texture and taste here made these a clear winner in the eyes—err mouths—of our Test Kitchen cooks.
Most Complex Flavor: Hershey’s Premier White Creme Chips
Our Test Kitchen also found a white chocolate chip that over-delivered on flavor in the best way possible. Hershey’s Premier White Creme Chips weren’t simply sweet.
These chips had testers picking up on a few different subtle flavors including caramel, vanilla and sweetened condensed milk. Each of these tastes is a welcome addition to so many recipes. Who doesn’t want to add a bit of buttery richness to their next batch of cookies or fudge?
These chips also had a familiar quality that many of our testers enjoyed. We all know and love Hershey’s candies, so being able to add a bit of that flavor to your favorite bakes is really a delight.
The Creamiest: Good & Gather White Baking Chips
For an exceptionally creamy white chip, our Test Kitchen recommends adding a bag or two of Target’s Good & Gather White Baking Chips.
These chips got high marks for their incredible creamy texture and meltiness. Simply put: These are the chips you want if you plan to melt this chocolate for a recipe or make candy. The smoothness of the chips is exactly what you want for making recipes like Tiger Butter Fudge or Dipped Gingersnaps.
But don’t count these chips out if you plan to stir them into your favorite cookie dough. Our Test Kitchen also appreciated the pure white color and slight butterscotchy sweetness.
Best for Cookies: Nestlé Tollhouse Premier White Morsels
When you mix a bag of chips into your favorite cookie recipe, like these Chocolate Chip-Cherry Chunk Cookies or a dessert bar like these Chunky Blond Brownies, you want those chips to keep their texture and pretty appearance in the batter. That ensures you get great bites of solid chocolate while you enjoy them alongside a glass of milk. The best option for recipes like these is Nestlé Toll House Premier White Morsels.
These chips didn’t melt as readily as the rest—perfect for using as a mix-in for cookies, bars and quick breads. As for the flavor, our team found these chips to be fairly sweet but still creamy—exactly what you’d expect from good white chocolate. Testers also picked up some nice vanilla flavors as well, meaning these chips will add more than just sweetness to your bakes.
What to Make with White Chocolate Chips
White chocolate chips are definitely part of a well-stocked pantry for bakers. These chips are essential for craveable bakes like white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and these leveled-up chocolate chip cookies packed with mix-ins.
But no need to limit yourself to just cookies with a bag of these chips. White chocolate chips are a great way to add a bit of sweetness to any bake. They also are great for candy-making. This English toffee and candy bark both get a lift from white chocolate chips.
Originally Published: May 16, 2021
