The Ghiradelli link is fantastic! I recently bought (home test baking) their semi-sweet chocolate chips and was shocked at how sweet and milky they were! (Not at all a happy surprise.) Chocolate is severely non-regulated. Meaning one brand's semi-sweet is another brand's bittersweet is another brand's "coating chocolate." Bittersweet is "should be" the darker/less sweet of the options, but depending on the brand, it could go either way.
The principal difference between the two is in their chocolate liquor, that is to say unsweetened chocolate, contents. Bittersweet chocolate has a chocolate liquor content of 50% or more, while semi-sweet's is down in the 35-45% range relative to its total volume or weight. It is perfectly true that you can use them interchangeably. Simply know that if you use bittersweet, the chocolate flavor will be a bit deeper, and since that is what you happily have to hand, lucky you! Here is the site that has some good information: http://www.ghirardelli.com/recipes-tips/chocopedia/chocolate-varieties
This is taken from TLC's site and I agree, both with them and Monita. They are interchangeable.
Bittersweet chocolate contains sugar, but generally not as much as semisweet chocolate, although, by government standards, they could contain practically identical amounts of chocolate liquor and sugar and still retain their bittersweet and semisweet labels. What this means is that one brand's bittersweet chocolate could be close in sweetness to another brand's semisweet chocolate, and vice versa.
Because of this, bittersweet and semisweet chocolate could be used interchangeably in most recipes; unsweetened, obviously, could not because it contains no sugar. But if your recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate and you have semisweet on hand, taste it first to determine if you could substitute.
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Tasting is ALWAYS the best test.
Bittersweet chocolate contains sugar, but generally not as much as semisweet chocolate, although, by government standards, they could contain practically identical amounts of chocolate liquor and sugar and still retain their bittersweet and semisweet labels. What this means is that one brand's bittersweet chocolate could be close in sweetness to another brand's semisweet chocolate, and vice versa.
Because of this, bittersweet and semisweet chocolate could be used interchangeably in most recipes; unsweetened, obviously, could not because it contains no sugar. But if your recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate and you have semisweet on hand, taste it first to determine if you could substitute.