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
Watch out people, these are ADDICTIVE!
Really great and easy recipe. Thanks Katie!
wow there is a lot of estrogen flying around in this comment section! are people just upset over the political situation? Katie hang in there! 🙂
Do you know where to find cacoa butter? Is it something you can buy at any old supermarket, or do you need to go to Whole Foods or another health store to get it?
By the way, I never knew vegan white chocolate was possible!!!!
SUCH a good idea! I love white chocolate… or is it! Haha 😉
I was so excited to make this, but it just wasn’t that good. I’m bummed. I found some cocoa butter at my health food store and followed your recipe…but I was unsure how much sugar to add. The cocoa butter was very strong tasting- I felt a bit like I was eating sweetened lotion. Should I try this again with the brand you recommend, or is the flavor of this recipe different from traditional white chocolate? I am wondering if I should add a bit more powdered milk next time. Did you experiment with doing that?
PS- Thanks for this great blog! I love cooking healthier versions of all these sweets!
Uh oh. Since you mentioned it tasted like lotion, it sounds like you accidentally bought the kind of cacao butter you’re supposed to use on your skin, not the food grade one. Don’t look in the vitamin section, look in the raw food section. That could make a difference!
No- it was food grade. In the baking section.
Hmmm… I don’t think the brand should matter. I really thought mine tasted like white chocolate :-?. Did you try the macadamia butter version? Maybe that would take away some of the cacao butter taste?
SO EXCITED!!!
I made a batch to go in my favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. I replaced the raisins with 1/2 cranberries and 1/2 of these white chocolate chips, and OMG! It worked!!! You have made this vegan very very happy!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Ok. I really want this to work.
I couldn’t get the ingredients to bind. They kept separating.
Help?
I had the same trouble…. it seems like the vanilla extract didnt want to bind. I melted the cacoa butter, added the stevia (which seemed to go in just fine), then the extract, then the salt, then the powdered milk. some of it formed small (very small) clumps that sank to the bottom and never dissolved or intergrated into the cacoa butter. Its in the freezer chilling now… and we will see what it taste like.
This is so weird, and I’m really sorry you both are having trouble :(. Fawn, how did yours turn out in the end?
Shannon, did you use the nut butter?
I didn’t use the nut butter, but I’ll try again with it.
Thanks, Katie. I love your blog; It’s as addicting as your 3 ingredient chocolate. o_0
Well, the nut butter definitely helped to bind the ingredients. Now to taste them…
Thank you so much!
if these sit out at room temp, will they melt? I was wondering if I could make puppy chow with them?? I cant do chocolate.. or white chocolate for that matter. 😛 Thanks
Katie- can you please answer me??
I haven’t tried it, but if you do, please report back. I would love to know.
Yes, they should be kept cold or they’ll melt… but puppy chow uses melted chocolate anyway, so I don’t see why that should be a problem.
Well, chocolate gets hard again if it sits out. I am wondering if this stuff would also.
Did my comment post ? Is this thing working?
HOORAY! This a great way for me to finally make peppermint bark that my lactose-intolerant hubby can enjoy! Thanks!