The best butterscotch, mint and peanut butter baking chips for when you need a chocolate alternative (2024)

Enter what I’m calling the alternative baking chip flavors. We held an informal taste test to vet some of the options out there, especially now that holiday baking season is hard on our heels. Below find our thoughts and a few suggestions for using them — the ones we liked, anyway.

Butterscotch.We tried two brands, Guittard and Nestlé Toll House. Had we tasted them separately, it would be hard to recall any difference. While we liked them both, we gave a slight edge to Guittard, which had a less cloying sweetness and more butter in the butterscotch. One person said the Nestlé chips tasted sort of fake, more on the spectrum of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup.

I happen to love butterscotch chips in pancakes, with or without chocolate thrown into the mix. Butterscotch chips play a starring role in Seven-Layer Bars (also known as Hello Dolly Bars). Swap them in for chocolate chips in an oatmeal cookie. They’re also a natural pairing with apple, as in theseApplesauce Butterscotch Cookies.

Mint.This was another Guittard-Nestlé showdown, and again, both were acceptable with a slight preference for the Guittard. The Guittard chips reminded tasters of both mint ice cream and the buttermints you may have grown up scooping out of the bowl at your local Chinese restaurant. The Nestlé mint chips, which come mixed in a bag with chocolate, were a little more astringent, with a flavor reminiscent of Andes mints.

Mint is, of course, a natural pairing with chocolate. We’d fold the green chips into any brownie of your choosingor a chewy chocolate cookie. Incorporate them into a ganache and chocolate frosting. Mint chips would also work in chocolate bark, whether it’s dark or white.

Caramel.We could hardly stop eating the Hershey’s sea salt caramel chips, which boasted actual crunchy salt we could feel. The Ghirardelli caramel chips definitely had more buttery flavor (it reminded me of Werther’s Original), although we found the chalky texture somewhat off-putting.

Caramel chips would be a swell substitute for the butterscotch chips in the aforementioned seven-layer bars. Naturally, they would also be right at home in nearly any kind of drop cookie or blondie. The Hershey’s chips would be particularly excellent in a chocolate chip cookie, and we’re very much into the idea of adding caramel chips to a peanut butter cookie. Try doubling down on the caramel inSalt Caramel Millionaire’s Shortbread when you replace the white chocolate chips with caramel chips for the swirl.

Coffee-ish.This was not the strongest group. Unfortunately, we cannot endorse the Nestlé espresso chips, which tasted bitter and burned, like coffee left sitting in the carafe on the coffee maker too long. The Baileys Original Irish Cream chips (sold by Clabber Girl) were not great, albeit passable. The Baileys flavor was pretty much undetectable, and we’re skeptical it would be there at all once baked. Of the three, we liked the Rex Coffee espresso chips the best (another Clabber Girl product), though they, too, were weak on the coffee flavor. They were more like dark chocolate chips than anything else.

Coffee and chocolate are an ideal couple, so like the mint chips, we’d be tempted to use at least the Rex chips in brownies and ganache. Amp up the coffee by using espresso chips instead of chocolate in theseMocha Chip Meringues. Or how about adding them to the mix inQuick No-Bake S’mores Barsfor a double dose of espresso?

Peanut butter.This was another disappointingly meh entry from Nestlé, also mixed with chocolate chips. “I don’t know what’s going on there,” one tester said. “The chocolate doesn’t taste like chocolate, and the peanut butter is really weak,” added another. The Reese’s, however, more than made up for its lackluster competition. As you might expect, the chips taste just like the inside of a Reese’s peanut butter cup. Nothing wrong with that! We appreciated the hit of salt in these chips, too.

Peanut butter chips are a star ingredient in the recipe forSkillet Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies I ran last year from Chrissy Teigen. For extra-nutty action, they would be just as welcome instead of or in addition to the chocolate chunks in myChocolate Chunk Tahini Blondies. Peanut butter chips in banana muffins would channel a classic after-school snack. Consider them for ganache and frosting, as well. They’d work well in the topper for these no-bakeCheerios Cereal Bars, which arebound together with a mix of butter, peanut butter and mini-marshmallows.

Cinnamon. Hershey’s for the win again. Their cinnamon chips were unabashedly cinnamony, almost bordering on Big Red gum or Red Hots candy, but we liked them nonetheless. Baking with them, especially in a buttery treat, would help counteract the boldness.

The first use we all thought of was scones. While we’re well aware that a great snickerdoodleneeds no additions, if you want to chip up your batch — orSnickerdoodle Blondies — these would be a prime candidate. Stir them intoEndlessly Adaptable Cookie Bars or your favorite quick bread. I think they’d be wonderful in the middle of and on top of thisSimple Cinnamon Coffee Cake.

Unicorn.Yes, we’ve saved the worst for last. In the words of one taster, these colorful chips from Nestlé were “vile.” How could something that tastes like nothing also taste so bad? The fact that the Blue 1 Lake and Red No. 3 were listed before the vanilla extract in the ingredients list should have been a warning.

In our opinion, they’re purely decorative. Sure, add some unicorn bling to your gingerbread house, as long as you don’t plan on eating the chips.