
Inspired by America's Test Kitchen, I decided to do my own chocolate tasting to pick my own favorite dark chocolate. These are the brands I tasted:
1) Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate
2) Ghirardelli Semisweet Chocolate baking bar (percentage unmarked)
3) Lindt Swiss bittersweet fine dark chocolate (percentage unmarked)
4) Callebaut bittersweet 60% cocoa solids
5) Callebaut bittersweet 70% cocoa solids
6) El Rey Extra bittersweet Gran saman chocolate 65% cocoa solids
7) Valrhona Guanaja 70% cocoa bittersweet chocolate
And the winner is: Callebaut bittersweet - either 60% or 70% is great for nibbling and wonderful to bake with. Even at 70% cocoa solids, this chocolate is not bitter tasting and has a nice, smooth, nutty flavor. Yum! Callebaut sells this chocolate in 11 lb blocks, but I find it broken in small chunks at Whole Foods at a great price (cheaper than buying the small wrapped bars you usually see).
Honorable mention: Valrhona, LIndt and the Ghirardelli 60% were also quite tasty to nibble, but didn't have quite as perfect a flavor as Callebaut. The Lindt and Ghirardelli are readily available, sold in nicely wrapped, easy to deal with 3-4 oz bars in most any grocery store's baking or chocolate section. These are a bit easier to handle than the Callebaut for nibbling.

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