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:
Hey Katie! This recipe looks awesome!
Where do you get your cacao butter? I’ve looked all over and I can’t find it. 🙁 Should I buy it online?
Where do you get cocoa butter? I couldn’t find it at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.
Hi all,
I was wondering if you could use malt powder instead of milk powder in this recipe?
Plez&&Thank-u 🙂
Sorry, I’ve never tried so I really don’t know.
So is it calcium in milk powder that helps keep the consistency like traditional whitte chocolate? I don’t currently have rice or soy milk powder, but was curious about alternatives (I saw coconut milk powder commented, but didn’t want to be missing an important compositional element..). In the past I made pudding with pre-packaged mix, almond milk and simply crushed calcium to help bond the pudding together. Not sure if this is at all the same thing, but love the idea of this recipe.
Hi Katie,
Where did you ever find those little molds for the “chips”? I’ve been looking everywhere online, and all the molds I’ve seen look too big for chocolate chips. Thanks. I love your blog!
Try Hobby Lobby.
Thanks for the recipe. I’m going to try colostrum for the milk powder.
yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum very nice white chocolate I LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello, just wondering if you could advise me a little please. When i make white chocolate I use the same ingredients but the chocolate is always so powdery when set. How do you overcome this? Does it take quite a long time to dissolve the powders in the chocolate?
Any help very appreciated
Thanks
You could always try using coconut milk or cream instead of milk powder.
I haven’t tried it myself but plan on doing so.
Hi Katie,
Is there any replacement for cocoa butter? I have seen someone mentioned coconut milk as a replacement for cocoa butter.
No. The cocoa butter is what makes it chocolate. You could get white baking chips without cocoa butter but then they would have all of the hydrogenated oils and additives that that we are trying to avoid by making our own. The coconut milk powder is a replacement for powdered milk. I have seen some recipes for a bark made with coconut oil in some paleo cookbooks. It looks white but I have never tasted it, it also has to be kept in the freezer I think since coconut oil has such a low melting point. Good luck!
Hi there,
Anyone know if I use this recipe as the base for moulding chocolate?
And if I can just go straight from the mixing stage of this recipe, into the melted mixing stage of preparing moulding chocolate?
Or do I need to set this recipe first & then start the moulding chocolate from scratch….
Thanks in advance for any advice 🙂
I’m needing a gluten free and dairy free white chocolate so this vegan recipe is ideal. However, I need to melt it and dip cake pops in it, and have it harden again. Would this work, do you think? Thanks in advance!
How well does this melt?
Hi Katie. I know your recipe was originally posted a couple of years ago so hoping you still can respond. I am a white chocolate artist and have an interest in trying your pure version recipe. However I am unsure after reading several of your posts whether you attempted to “mold” this chocolate. I do seasonal gift chocolate (white) in the winter and it is my goal to investigate a way to create a healthy version that can be molded…what are your thoughts??? Thanks so much…Katie M.
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?).