I make chocolate chip cookies all year long and they are not a traditional holiday cookie for me. Add pink chocolate and they suddenly become festive. Most people love chocolate chip cookies because they can be made to their liking. There are many recipes out there to satisfy most tastes whether you prefer a crispy, soft or chewy cookie, with or without nuts, salted, chunks or chips, dark, white, milk chocolate or now ruby.

I first heard about this pink chocolate in a recipe on http://sherryspickings.blogspot.com/search?q=ruby+chocolate where she made a cheesecake. I knew I had to use this pretty pink chocolate in one of my favorite cookies.

So, what is Ruby chocolate? It is a variety of Belgian chocolate introduced in 2017 by Barry Callebaut. It had been in development since 2004 and was patented in 2015. It is sourced from Brazil, Ecuador and the Ivory Coast. The pink color is natural and has a tangy, berry flavor. It is believed that how the beans are processed result in this pinkish color. Unfermented beans have a naturally red-pinkish colour – citric acid is used to further treat the beans so they maintain their bright colour. I’ve also seen it added to a recipe…

It turned out this was a not a simple task to make a “ruby chocolate chip” cookie. This is my second attempt with great success thank goodness! The first recipe was for Christmas but was  not worthy of posting or eating for that matter. I did some research on ruby chocolate as it was only introduced in 2017. I downloaded Callebaut’s Ruby Encyclopedia (for the benefit of professional bakers which I’m not), used different search engines to gather information and recipes and finally ordered this small cookbook, Ruby Chocolate: A Beginner’s Guide by Lisa Maliga (2020) where I found this recipe.

Why the difficulty? Ruby chips or callettes have more fat than say a milk chocolate chip. Like white chocolate ruby chocolate is a little harder to work with – temperature is important. So, the flour and butter ratio need to be adjusted accordingly. Lisa also baked her cookies at a lower temperature than the first recipe. Without going into too much detail the first recipe I tried had 1-1/4 cups butter whereas the second recipe had 1/2 cup butter using the same amount of flour. BIG DIFFERENCE! The cookies below were almost like lace cookies as you could see through them and oh what a buttery mess – the chips melted into the dough except for the ones I added to the top of the dough. Not edible!

Please note: I am not going into other possibilities with this chocolate, it’s especially good for melting. All I can say is do your research especially if you use a recipe online!

Comment: I am a home baker and not a professional but I rarely have trouble with my cookies spreading, until I made the first recipe of these ruby chocolate chip cookies. Some ideas to help prevent spreading for chocolate chip cookies:

• Sally’s Baking Addiction recommends using silpat baking sheets versus parchment paper as it helps prevent spreading, however Lisa recommends using white parchment to help retain the color of the ruby chocolate
• use quality made pans
• bake only a sheet at a time (not two on different racks)
• never re-use a hot baking sheet
• butter should be left out for 1 hour to come to room temperature (eggs too)
• weigh your flour (I never have)
• don’t overmix the dough
• chill the dough (15 minutes to an hour – for these cookies I chilled them 30 minutes while I preheated the oven)
• according to Sally you can help save your spreading cookies by using a spoon to push the edges back 
• or try my trick and place the balls of dough in a muffin pan 

I enjoyed both cookies but to be honest the drop cookie versus the muffin cookie was the best. Mainly because the chocolate flavor came through better and I think they look better.