A place for everything: White Chocolate

Ok, I know half the chocoloholic readers have already tuned out because white chocolate gets a bad rap. It's too sweet! It's gritty and pasty! It's not really chocolate! Au contraire mes amis. Shitty white chocolate is well... shitty. Just like cheap, crappy chocolate is, well... crappy. But good white chocolate, real white chocolate adds a rich creaminess from coco butter that can really set off other flavors in baking.  You see, real white chocolate IS chocolate. It's made from sugar and coco butter (the fat solids derived from cocoa production). Crap white chocolate is sugar and emulsifiers such as wax, mixed with fats like palm kernel oil. (side note: those are also the main ingredients in nutella).

Example. Ingredients for Ghiradelli Premium White Chocolate Chips:
"Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel, Coconut, Palm Oil), Whole Milk Powder, Nonfat Milk Powder, Whey, Cream Powder, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin (an Emulsifier), Vanilla. May contain trace amounts of peanuts, nuts and flour gluten."

Um, ew? That's as close to white chocolate as regular yogurt that's been stuffed full of corn starch to make it thick is to greek yogurt.

Ingredients for the Ghiradelli White Chocolate Baking Bar:
"White Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Nonfat Dry Milk,Milk Fat, Soy Lecithin - An Emulsifier, Vanilla)."

You've got soy lecithin for stability, but otherwise you're getting cocoa butter and sugar - "real" white chocolate. Hell, do a taste test between the two and you can tell the difference instantly.

So if you're baking with white chocolate, be sure to read the ingredients of the package and please, buy the real thing.

That being said, here is a preview of my favorite use for white chocolate, to set off 70% dark chocolate in cookies and brownies. These are my good friend Daphne's Evil Brownies of Doom (b/c they doom your best attempts to diet any day!). I'm a sucker for good, rich brownies and these are my hands down favorite any day. Picture today, recipe tomorrow.


Just a further side note on chocolate. You'll see Hershey's unsweetened in the background. Unsweatened, natural cocoa (not dutch processed) actually gives a stronger, richer, more acidic chocolate flavor in recipes. Dutch processed provides a smoother flavor, but I prefer the more upfront notes of naturally processed. 
Also, if you can, don't buy generic chocolate. Hell, don't buy most (American) Nestle, Hershey, or Ghiradelli chocolate chips. With the exception of Hershey's milk and Ghiradelli 60%, they are for the most part crappy chocolate stuffed full of fillers so the chips retain their chip-shape when baking. The best easily available chocolate chips in the US is hands down Guittard (also less than Ghiradelli, which is over priced for being mediocre chocolate). Guittard also makes a range of Akroma free-trade chocolate that is amazing.
When I'm baking I only use Guittard, Lindt, the occasional bag of Hersheys or Ghiradelli if I can't find the others, or Trader Joes Chocolates (which are very good, very affordable, and superior to Ghiradelli, Nestle, or Hershey). Most of the time I don't use chips, but just buy bars and chop it as needed.