New product Wednesday, at Dallas-area stores: York Premier Baking Pieces

by Teresa Gubbins

A search of the World Wide Web reveals that York Premier Baking Pieces were available in at least one place (and possibly only that one place) as far back as 2006, then emerged more widely over the 2007 holidays. But only recently did they became available at the local Tom Thumb.

York peppermint patty premier baking pieces are certainly no larger than the everyday household penny.

A York Peppermint Patty shrunken down to a mini size barely bigger than an aspirin tablet, they are catnip to those entranced by all that is wee. They're part of a semi-new-ish ultra-pricey "premier" line from Hershey that also includes special dark chips with macadamia nuts as well as white chips with macadamia nuts.

The York pieces are a smart product from Hershey, in that there are bakers who were taking regular York Peppermint Patties and chopping them into smaller bits to be folded into recipes. This is exactly like Andes Mints, which bakers were, again, chopping up and adding to baked goods, so Tootsie Roll pre-chopped them and sold them as a baking ingredient and not on the candy aisle.

The whole "baking pieces" category has really blown up. "Baking pieces" used to mean one thing and one thing only: chocolate chips. The first spin-off was butterscotch-flavored chips, dating back to the '70s. (My mother used to add them to pancakes as a switcheroo from chocolate-chip pancakes.) A grand parade of flavored baking chips has ensued: white chocolate, cappuccino, mint, peanut-butter, cinnamon, raspberry, striped chips. Then baking M&Ms baking pieces. Then chopped-up Heath bars. More recently, Kraft Caramel Bits. Now mini-peppermint patties.

Practically speaking, they're rather too large to mesh gracefully into cookie dough, and also are still relatively new; so the pool of recipes is pretty much limited to a brownie recipe found on the back of the package.