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.
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!
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:
Thought the voting comment was pretty irresponsible.
It’s a personal choice. Don’t bash others for it.
It’s a civic responsibility. I understand now it was a joke but it was not initially read as such. Katie speaks to a large audience. The theme of the blog isn’t political but one certainly has responsibilities when reaching out to groups of people. In any case, I wasn’t bashing anyone.
actually. we’re given the freedom to choose to vote. people shouldn’t feel the pressure to vote if they don’t want to…I easily read it as a joke, so I’m not sure how it was irresponsible, if someone is seriously gonna take a comment so far out of context like that, and choose not to vote, it obviously wasn’t very important to them in the first place. Yes, we’re lucky we get to vote, but we’re also lucky we have the option not to vote, it’s all about the freedom of choice.
It’s a right, not a responsibility. Don’t confuse the two.
Oh my… there are too many people who read this blog just to make negative comments about Katie’s thoughts or opinions… if you don’t like it, don’t read it.
I took Katie’s comment about not voting as a “joke” as well (I, myself, have “joked” with a couple friends who’s vote opposed mine, saying that I HAD to vote whether I wanted to or not – just so I could cancel out THEIR vote, lol. But that’s all it was – a joke… 😉 … However, I will say that Aubrey and Mandy are correct, in my opinion. Voting IS a right. However, if you choose NOT to vote, then you also forfeit your rights to complain later down the line about whom ever gets into office… I strongly urge EVERYONE to exercise your RIGHT to voice your opinion and VOTE!! … Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe Katie! I look forward to trying it! 😉
My goodness gracious. I got the joke- it seemed fairly clear.
The white chocolate sounds great. I am not vegan, but white chocolate is usually full of so much nastiness, so this sounds like a much better option!
Not to fuel this ridiculous debate much more, but I should point out that – whether intentional or not – Katie votes every time she visits the market or posts a delicious recipe. There is so much more to civic responsibility than showing up at the polls every four years and voting for a president. A few major food producers have an obscene impact on the entire political realm, and neither candidate had clean hands on that front. The issue of food production is clearly important to Katie and she is doing a very good job leading by example with that issue. I find it pretty difficult to take offense to a (pretty blatant) joke from someone with nothing but good intentions, who is (again, whether knowingly or not) very actively representing her standpoint on an issue that affects everyone.
Hi Katie! I thought it was worth mentioning that this will not taste like the white chocolate confection most people consider to be white chocolate. Cocoa butter has a very strong chocolate flavor…of which there is none in the yucky stuff you buy in the store. Did you notice that? I made several versions awhile ago and realized I wasn’t going to get that white chocolate I remember from my youth with cocoa butter. What did you think? Cocoa butter DOES make some very luscious homemade chocolate though!
There actually IS cacao butter in most of the bars I looked at. Maybe that was because I looked at Whole Foods?
did you think your tasted like the white chocolate confection most people buy? Or more chocolatey?
I’m hoping that it’s not too late to ask this since the last post was in 2012, but…
I’m on the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD) and really have missed regular chocolate chips in cookies because coconut oil based chocolate melts too quickly to hold together in baking and just drips out of the cookie. Does Cocoa butter really hold up in baking like regular chocolate does? I was thinking I could try mixing cocoa powder and honey into it to make chocolate chips! For someone who hasn’t had a chocolate chip cookie in 9 months, this would be AMAZING!
Shoot, sorry, I just saw where someone else asked the same question. Hard to find the comments about food when they’re buried in all the political goofiness. I don’t want you to delete people’s posts because they disagree with you, I want you to delete people’s rabbit trails so your readers don’t have to spend a whole hour skimming through unrelated content just to see if their question has been answered. Great post, great recipes, good job not being drawn in by “trolls” trying to just see how much angst they can stir up!
Your genius! I am going to try this!! Way better then what is in the stores. But where do you buy cacoa butter?
Natural food stores, or online. Look for Artisana.
White chocolate is so good, thanks for posting this. However, pandas are bears. Red pandas are not. Koalas are not.
Oh darn it… I’d meant to look that up to be sure before I posted. And now that I looked it up, it turns out I’m wrong! I’d always heard that they weren’t really bears. Thanks for the heads up. *Feels silly*
Katie, if you’re going to “joke” about voting, at least let everyone know you’re joking. It’s important that young leaders think of their followers and the impact their words have on them. Whether you realize it or not, you are a leader! Please be careful. This is a right and a responsibility of every eligible American that we can’t take lightly. Thank you.
Sorry about that… I’m thinking you’re reading my post through email. I actually changed the post on the blog to reflect what I really meant.
Everybody just need to chill out. Obviously, Katie was joking. If you didn’t know that Katie was joking, then you probably just have not been reading her blog very long. A few other commentors have already pointed out the fact that it is every citizen’s choice as ro whether or not to vote.
If so many people asked her to be more clear, then maybe it wasnt so “obvious”.
I’m sorry but people are taking the voting thing way too seriously, and just want something to complain or argue about…
No kidding. I used to live with a guy that swayed differently than me and we joked about canceling each others votes all the time. 🙂 And yes, we still voted. 🙂
Agreed
Already voted this morning! Please, everyone get out and vote, no matter who it’s for. And remember that you’re also voting for Congressional and state representatives, not just the President! Lots to be decided, so go be heard!
I already voted this morning. I know that I have friends who have cancelled my vote, but I like to think that I cancelled their vote. 🙂 The thing that makes me sad is that it is all determined by the electoral college, so our voice isn’t really being heard as clearly as it should be. I don’t like white chocolate either, so the mention of voting was the best part. 🙂
Yes, that upsets me as well! I feel like it gives some people (living in swing states, for example) a bigger say in the outcome; their votes mean more. And there are other systems/ideas (not just going by the popular vote, which has its own drawbacks) I feel would work better. Then again, it’s easy for me to sit back and criticize when I’m not the one actually writing the laws. I try to remember that… no system is going to be perfect. But I share your frustration with our current system.
I totally understand what you mean. I have lived all of my life in Washington and never felt my vote for the president mattered. The presidents were already giving their victory speeches before the votes in Washington were even tallied. I didn’t realize the difference of empowerment until I moved to Florida three years ago. This is my first presidential election cycle in Florida and I am only now realizing the power of my vote, because I am in such an important swing state. Strange, this whole system. But, I agree, Katie, it is easy for me to criticize here at home. We do what we can though. Aaaaand, thank you for the recipe! The store bought vegan white chips are pretty gross. This is perfect timing for the holidays. Keep up the spirited blog! You are a positive light! 🙂
Can you MAKE cacao butter?? or do you have to buy it?
I think you have to buy it, as it’s a raw ingredient.
“raw” as in it’s not something that is made with other ingredients. It IS the only ingredient, if that makes sense.
I thought cocoa butter was pretty much lotion… Im SO confused right now.
lol…what she used in the recipe is food-grade cacao butter, not the kind you would find at a drugstore that is sold as a moisturizer.
You can get the powdered milk solids at shelfreliance.com–at least I think that is what you are referring to and mountainroseherbs.com has cocoa butter at $4.75 for 4 oz. or $13.75 per lb. Hope this helps!