The Julia Child-Approved Chocolate Brand You Probably Haven't Heard Of

In America, the chocolate brands you are familiar with typically depend on your reason for buying chocolate; simply for eating or for baking with. If you fall into the first group, you might favor Lindt or Godiva. If you're part of the latter group, you may reach for Guittard or Ghirardelli baking chocolate for the quality, if not just for their availability at many grocery stores. And regardless of the group you're in, you definitely know Hershey's. But there's a lesser-known brand that offers taste and quality so high that Julia Child proclaimed it to be the best she'd tasted in the U.S. It goes by the name of Scharffen Berger. The company's history is really quite interesting and its chocolate products delicious.

The Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker company was started in the U.S. in 1997 by a doctor and a winemaker with an interest in fine foods. Together they introduced Americans to single-origin chocolate and were the first company to put cacao percentages on the packet. They were in favor of a transparent view into how their product was produced and were aiming for top quality. Free samples allowed people to taste that difference in quality, which was enough to entice them to spend the extra bucks. The company was purchased by Hershey in 2005, but it was resold in 2020 and returned to private ownership in 2021. The company offers many types of chocolate, including truffle gift boxes, chocolate bars, chocolate-covered snacks, cocoa powder, and different varieties of baking chocolate.

You may have thought Ghiradelli were the best store-bought chocolate option for baking out there, but one taste of Scharffen Berger might change your mind. The company has bittersweet, semisweet, and unsweetened baking chocolate options with cacao percentages at 42%, 55%, 62%, 70%, and even 99%. Each type of baking chocolate on the market has something that makes it unique, but the general gist is the same; baking chocolate usually has a higher percentage of cocoa solids and less sugar than other types of chocolate. This helps the chocolate hold its shape better when baked and creates a smoother, more blendable chocolate when melted. It also gives the baker more control over the sugar content of the finished sweet.

Many grocery stores carry Scharffen Berger products, but if you can't find them in your local market, don't fret. You can buy their Dark Chocolate Bars and Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Baking Chips in bulk online.