White chocolate is not really chocolate.
- Just like tomatoes aren’t really vegetables.
- Lentils aren’t really beans.
- Koalas aren’t really bears…
Life’s confusing, isn’t it?
Sometimes people are surprised to find not a single white chocolate recipe on this entire chocolate-covered blog. White chocolate has just never been my favorite thing… because I want it to taste like chocolate and am mad when it doesn’t!
Plus, most white chocolate chips aren’t vegan, and they are full of unhealthy trans fats (partially-hydrogenated oils) and artificial ingredients.
Many of you have asked if I could come up with recipes that include chocolate’s paler cousin. But to do that, I first had to figure out how to make my own healthy white chocolate.
Thankfully, it turned out to be really, really easy!
I read up about white chocolate on Wikipedia and checked out the candy bars at the grocery store. Research! (To make research fun, all you have to do is get out of the library and head to the chocolate aisle. Who knew?)
They all consist of the same basic ingredients: cacao butter, milk solids (dry milk), sugar, and salt… Pretty much, as long as you have the one magic ingredient, the white chocolate is so easy to make it can hardly even be called a recipe.
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White Chocolate Chips
(can be sugar-free)
- 2-inch cube cacao butter (30 grams, or 2 tbsp after melting)
- scant 1/8 tsp pure vanilla extract
- stevia or powdered sugar to taste (2 tbsp if powdered sugar)
- 1 tbsp raw cashew or macadamia butter (can omit; it’ll just be less creamy) (15g)
- very tiny pinch salt
- optional: If you can find it, I highly recommend adding 1/2 tsp dry milk powder—such as soy or ricemilk powder—to the ingredients for optimum creamy texture, as this is one of the basic ingredients in every white chocolate bar I looked at during my aforementioned research. However, knowing that a lot of people would have trouble finding the powder, I also tried omitting it. And then I tried adding protein powder instead (increasing to 1 tsp). Omitting or adding the protein powder instead will yield a texture that’s a little different than store-bought white chocolate, but both ways still work! (Just please don’t add liquid milk. I tried that too, and it doesn’t work.)
Melt the cacao butter (either in the microwave or on the stove). Turn off heat, then stir in all other ingredients. Pour into candy molds or a plastic container, and freeze until it hardens. Healthier and vegan white chocolate chips. Yay!
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Question of the Day:
Are you going to vote tonight?
I never got around to early voting, so I will be going tonight. Unfortunately, my roommate’s and my opposite votes are going to cancel each other out… we jokingly thought about just staying home!
Link of the Day:
…….…PB Cookie Dough Balls
Hi Katie,
Thanks for giving me the ideas for ingredients I needed to make my own white chocolate spread. I dissolve whey isolate in water, then stir it into some (salt and sugar) free peanut butter. This means the protein powder can be dissolved, thus avoiding the grainy feel of powder in end product, and the peanut butter acts as the emulsifier for the water based protein solution and the coconut oil I use instead of cocoa butter. I then add honey, stevia and natural caramel essence for flavour, and liquid coconut oil to make it more solid. I store it in the fridge of course, which preserves it and gives it the right consistency.
Whyte choco be healthee for realz!
Chek out the health benefitz:
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2014/03/white-chocolate/
Dark chocolate sometimes contains mycotoxins and aflatoxins (which can be carcinogenic, depending on dose), whereas white chocolate doesn’t. While cocoa butter doesn’t have nearly as many health benefits as dark chocolate, it’s been shown to benefit platelet function and potentially atherogenesis more than dark chocolate (in men, but not in women…why must you be so confusing science?).
Hi Katie,
I love your site. I know that this comment section became VERY contriversial. But could you please edit the comments to food related? I just spent about 10 minutes going through the comments to find out why my chocolate was separating. I didn’t use the nut butter, just cacao butter,powdered sugar, powdered milk, and vanilla. My son is allergic to soy so we cannot use commercial white chocolate. I am thinking that the nut butter works as an emulsifier like the soy lecithin. I know that they make lecithin from sunflower since it is in my protien powder so it may be in other nut butters too. I know that sunflower is not a nut but they may have similar properties. Heck, I add dijon mustard to my balsalmic vinegrette as an emulsifier. Just wouldn’t taste good in white chocolate :-). I’m going to rewarm my chocolate and add in a bit of cashew butter. (It’s what I have in the fridge) Thanks for the recipe and all of the other great ones that you share.
Hey Katie,
The recipe sounds great! I’ve been looking for sugar free whute chocolate chips for such a long time! How long can you store these and what’s the best way to store them? Fridge or freezer or just an air-tight container?
Best regards,
Lilli
Freezer if using the coconut oil. Otherwise you can leave in the fridge or room temp.
I love doing research at the library! In fact, I just love libraries! How could you say research at libraries is boring :(.
I have been wanting to make these for sometime. I have found the molds. Not I just need to find the cacao butter. Is it in raw form is food grade cocoa butter the same.
Please point me in the right direction.
Thanks so much in advance.
Food grade cacao butter. Try Artisana.com or amazon. Or ask at whole foods for the one that is edible!
Hi Katie,
I am going to attempt this recipe again. However, I was wondering where you got the mold you used for the chips you show in your pictures?
Thank you!
Dianna
She said she bought the mold at Hobby Lobby.
We are going to use this recipe for white chocolate chips, but have no idea how much it makes. The recipe we are using the chips in calls for 1/3 c. white chocolate chips. Can anyone help?
Do you have a recipe for yoghurt white chocolate
Hi Katie, I knew there had to be a healthy dairy-free white chocolate recipe out there, no surprise that it was on your blog! I’ve ordered some cocoa butter from Amazon and my food co-op is ordering in some soy milk powder (Now Foods) for me. I’m excited to give it a try!