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:
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!
Yummmm katie this sounds so good! I’ll definitely have to try it!
Yay!!! I love white chocolate!! And my husband and I are trying to go “as vegan as possible” so this will be super helpful… Provided I can find cacao butter. :-). I’ve actually always preferred white chocolate.
I already voted by absentee ballot. I vote in a swing state, so I triple-checked to make sure my ballot got there and will be counted today. 🙂 I think it would have been hilarious for you and your roommate to put opposing signs on your lawn. Hooray for democracy!
I’m with you. White chocolate is not chocolate. I like hints of it, like white chocolate chips in cranberry cookies. But to just eat it plain? No way.
Thank you for this recipe! I love white chocolate and have not been impressed with the store bought vegan ones. Can’t wait to try this!
Yummy! I like your recipes because I have to make things sugar free. Dairy free doesn’t hurt either, but it’s awesome to know how to make good sugar-free treats. I voted early — I love early voting, this is my third time now. No stress on election day. I’ll tell you one thing — I’ll be glad when it’s over. I’m so sick of the hype. And people are so divided this time!
LOVE white chocolate. It has a subtle chocolate flavor that’s not too intense.
Excellent! I’ve always wondered how to go about this, but I’m not a fan of experimenting with candy. Too messy.
As for voting, I absolutely did. I voted absentee with my mom and turned the ballots in to our polling place this morning. Considering what people went through to make sure I could vote, I’d be insulting their sacrifice by staying home. People died for this right, and in other countries, they’re still dying. If that isn’t serious, then what is?
Yay for white chocolate chips and voting! I’m definitely on the real chocolate side, too… but especially for Christmas sometimes you just need white chocolate for a recipe. And have you SEEN the prices on buying vegan white choc online??! Crazy town.
And my brothers vote and my vote will cancel each other out but we’re still going for sure. It’s too exciting to miss out 🙂
Ohmygosh!!! I was just daydreaming about these in class (from an earlier post when you mentioned working on the recipe…) Thank you!!!
Yum! I wasn’t much of a white chocolate fan either growing up… but I did love those white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, man… they’re delicious!
Poor Katie. Too much grief for a post about white chocolate!!! But you did an excellent job of editing on the fly, because your current post is fabulous. And I am way more of a bitter, dark chocolate fan, but am thrilled to have some decent white chocolate to throw into an oatmeal, cranberry cookie! Woo-hoo! If you want to get started on that recipe for me, that’d be great. Feel free to bake them, leave them as dough, turn it into breakfast oatmeal, add macadamia nuts. I’m just thinking that would be a great combo for the holidays…hint, hint. 😉
Love your site. You continue to completely fulfill my cravings for sweets, while still maintaining my wish to offer nutritious foods to my family. I just love being able to dump a cup of chocolate chips into something and still tell myself it’s health food. Yay!
I will put it on my to-do list! If not this year, maybe in the cookbook or next year!
I actually am a HUGE white “chocolate” fan! I prefer it to real chocolate (GASP!) Thanks for the recipe!!