About Chocolate Recipes Chip

What changed, and what it changed for you

When this site began, it was a scrapbook of recipes I’d scribbled on napkins or printed from blogs—no structure, no testing, just the ones I trusted. The first few years, the only thing that changed was the number of tabs open in my browser.

Now, every recipe follows the same rhythm: tested in my kitchen, then sent to someone who’s never baked before, with notes on where they got stuck.

The goal wasn’t to make things harder, but to make them *work*—for the person who’s never tempered chocolate, or who only owns a microwave and a spoon.

The one that took years

The first few hundred recipes had no way to account for real kitchens. A recipe for fudge would say *‘melt the chocolate over low heat’*—without explaining that ‘low’ is a lie if your stove runs hot, or that stirring too fast makes it seize.

I ignored it for years because fixing it meant rewriting everything.

It wasn’t until a volunteer sent me a photo of a lumpy ganache—with the note *‘I followed the instructions exactly’*—that I realized the problem wasn’t the recipes. It was the *instructions*.

The fix took six months: adding a *‘Kitchen Reality Check’* section to every recipe, with troubleshooting for sheet pans, odd ovens, and the chaos of home baking.

Now, those sections cost time—each one is written, tested, and edited—but they’ve cut the number of frustrated emails by 70%. The alternative was pretending home kitchens were labs, and that never worked.

Meet the author

I used to believe recipes were either sacred (grandmother’s secret) or disposable (a blog post you’d forget by next week). So I treated them like instructions: follow them, and you’d get the result in the photo. The problem was, no one’s kitchen matched the photo.

I’d test a recipe once, snap a picture of the ‘perfect’ version, and call it done—even if the real batches looked like they’d been run over by a forklift.

The first time I burned a batch of pralines was in my grandmother’s kitchen, at age eight. She didn’t scold me.

She just handed me the spatula and said, *‘Next time, watch the sugar.’* I spent the next decade ignoring that advice, writing recipes that assumed everyone had a thermometer, a perfect oven, and no kids pulling on their sleeve mid-instruction.

What changed is that I stopped pretending.

Now, I run this site the way I wish I’d run my first baking blog: with a volunteer tester who’s never baked before, a *‘What Could Go Wrong’* section in every recipe, and photos that show the real result—not the one I wish I’d gotten.

My name is Sheldon Faulkner, and I spend my days fixing recipes so they actually work, not just look good in a stock photo.

What did not change

The tagline was there from the start, and it hasn’t moved: *‘Tempered chocolate meets the crack of the first bite.’* It’s not about the fanciest desserts, or the most obscure techniques.

It’s about the moment something *clicks*—when the texture is right, the flavors balance, and you finally understand why it works.

The core belief hasn’t either: that great recipes aren’t about secrets. They’re about clarity. Whether it’s a classic chocolate cake or a modern twist, the best ones tell you *why* you’re doing something, not just *what* to do.

That’s why every recipe still starts with a sentence on the technique, not just the steps.

What is still being fixed

Right now, we’re working on a *‘Recipe Doctor’* tool—an interactive guide that walks you through fixing common problems (like grainy chocolate or sunken centers) based on what went wrong. It’s not ready yet, but the first version will let you upload a photo of your disaster and get step-by-step fixes.

If you’ve ever baked something that looked nothing like the photo, or followed instructions that didn’t make sense, the contact page is where to tell us what’s missing.