You've Never Seen a Chocolate Chip Like This

You might be surprised to learn there's essentially no design to the classic chocolate chip you know and love, whose shape comes from being dropped on the factory line. The goal is mass production rather than optimal taste. But now, a senior industrial designer at Tesla says he's come up with a new design that's a huge improvement not only in terms of taste, but also texture. Remy Labesque began dreaming up a shape with a purpose three years ago after taking a beginner chocolate course at San Francisco startup Dandelion Chocolate, where executive pastry chef Lisa Vega made her "Maybe the Very Best Chocolate Chip Cookie" with hand-piped chocolate discs that took four hours to create, per Bloomberg. Labesque ultimately came up with a mold for a faceted chip, something like a flattened pyramid, with two thick edges and two thin ones that instantly melt on the tongue.

"If you take a huge chunk of chocolate and put it in your mouth, that taste can be overwhelming," Dandelion Chocolate co-founder Todd Masonis says, per the New York Post. "The flat shape helps slow down the experience." It also stays whole during baking, but "the center of the chip gets soft," says Vega, per Bloomberg. "We're proud to have optimized the chocolate chip eating experience as a result of rethinking the humble shape itself," Labesque says, per CandyIndustry.com. The downside is the cost, which stems from tons of research and a $500,000 tempering line. Dandelion Chocolate's chips—for which Labesque, an expert in solar roofs, was paid mostly in chocolate—cost $30 for a 17.6oz bag, compared to $3 for a 12oz bag of Nestle Toll House's chips, per Bloomberg. They come in three 70% single-origin types from Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Madagascar. (More chocolate stories.)