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Learn to make homemade vegan white chocolate with this easy recipe. Just 6 simple ingredients!
What makes this recipe for vegan white chocolate special?
White chocolate has its lovers, and its haters. Which one are you?
If you're a hater, I get it. Most commercial white chocolate tastes like, well, sweetened wax. It most certainly does not taste like actual chocolate. That's because most white chocolate isn't made with any cacao butter.
Cacao butter is simply the creamy, cocoa fat that is separated from the fiber of cocoa beans. Without it, you can forget about anything having the smoothness of chocolate of any kind.
When you see a percentage, like 72% or 56%, on a bar of chocolate, it's referring to the percentage of cocoa solids. The darker the chocolate, usually the more cacao solids it has.
Better quality white chocolates will also have a fair amount of cacao butter. They will also almost always contain milk, as milk helps create a lovely, creamy taste and feel. Instead of milk powder, I add cashew butter for the same effect. Almond butter also works fine, but with only a slight added taste.
How to make vegan white chocolate
It's so easy to make your own vegan white chocolate at home. The only ingredient that you may not already have is cacao butter. When you open a bag of cacao butter and inhale, you may believe that you've already got some white chocolate. It smells so rich and chocolatey already!
But if you try to eat just plain cacao butter, you won't enjoy it. There are plenty of recipes floating around for “fat bombs” for ketogenic dieting. They contain large amounts of cacao butter with just another ingredient or two.
We're making actual white chocolate, though, for eating and baking. To the cacao butter, we're adding a true sweetener plus a stabilizer. Here, the stabilizer is cashew butter to keep the recipe vegan, but the stabilizer is typically non-fat dry milk. If you'd like to use non-fat dry milk in place of almond flour in this recipe, you certainly can but keep in mind that it won't be vegan—or even dairy free any longer.
I've also made this recipe with powdered coconut milk (affiliate link), and it's worked really well, too. There are a number of brands of coconut milk powder available now, and competition usually leads to better products at a better price.
All you really need to do to make homemade white chocolate (vegan or not) is to melt cacao butter, with or without some shortening to keep the chocolate from being too rich, add your stabilizer and sugar plus salt and vanilla as flavor enhancers.
Pour the thick liquid mixture into molds, and wait. I used silicone molds in cute little shapes here, but anything flexible will do. I even have a set of silicone measuring cups that I've used. Or any regular ice cube tray works just fine.
Where to buy cacao butter
There are a number of brands of cacao available online and at health food stores. I really like this cacao butter (affiliate link) for a great combination of price and quality. Cacao butter is naturally gluten free, but check labels to be sure that yours hasn't been exposed to gluten in manufacturing. It's become more available lately, along with a lot of dairy free products like dairy free cheese, making it so easy to make dairy free mac and cheese.
Rather than using 100% cacao butter, I prefer to add nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening (affiliate link). Although you can make white chocolate with all cacao butter, the results tend to be too rich-tasting for most people (including me!).
Paleo Options for Vegan White Chocolate
Since cacao is a superfood, it's a shame to add regular confectioners' sugar to it. I've taken coconut palm sugar and ground it as fine as possible, adding 1 teaspoonful of arrowroot powder or tapioca starch to it to prevent clumping.
You can make vegan white chocolate with this version of powdered maple sugar (affiliate link), but the sugar has a tendency to settle out of the mixture. Heat the mixture a bit longer, and stir until it is as fully dissolved as possible before pouring into a mold, and it works.
FAQs
Yes, vegan white chocolate is just as decadently delicious as its non-vegan counterpart. This homemade version tastes better than any commercial option you'd find in the grocery store as it uses good quality cacao butter which gives the white chocolate it's creamy, irresistible texture and taste.
Yes, you can melt vegan chocolate. Like traditional chocolate, the ingredients in vegan white chocolate melt when heated.
Vegan chocolate is different in that it contains no animal products such as dairy, butter, or honey. Traditional and commercially-produced chocolate is often made using animal products such as dairy.
Vegan white chocolate is the sweet treat we all deserve, but what else can you do with it? Wrap the chocolates in attractive packaging and give them as a thoughtful, homemade gift. Use the cute chocolate shapes as decoration on a vegan birthday cake, or as a wintery topping on your gluten free Bûche de Noël.
Vegan White Chocolate Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 ounces (112 g) edible raw cacao butter, chopped
- 4 tablespoons (48 g) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening, (See Recipe Notes)
- 1 tablespoon (16 g) smooth natural cashew butter, (almond butter is fine, too, but has a competing flavor)
- 1 cup (115 g) confectioners' sugar
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a medium-sized heat-safe bowl, place the cacao butter and shortening.
- Heat indirectly by placing the bowl over small pot of simmering water, making sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the water.
- Allow the cacao butter and shortening to melt, stirring occasionally. The mixture will be thin.
- With the mixture still over the simmering water, add the nut butter and mix to combine.
- Add the confectioner’s sugar, salt and vanilla, and mix until smooth.
- Remove the bowl from the pot and allow to cool briefly before transferring the mixture to a measuring cup for pouring into molds.
- Pour the mixture into silicone molds (really any flexible container will do) and refrigerate (or leave at room temperature) for about 30 minutes, or until solid.
- Remove from the molds and serve.
Notes
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
What size mold did you use and where can I purchase that same size mold you used?
Thank you!
I’m afraid I bought my molds at Michael’s and they don’t have a brand on them anywhere! I even looked on Michael’s site, and they don’t offer them. These look similar, though. Hope that helps, Sonia!
ETA: This silicone mold looks good, too!
Don’t the percentages on non white chocolate represent the amount of cocoa solids, not cocoa butter, and it’s the lack of cocoa solids that makes white chocolate white? That’s what I always thought, but I could be wrong… :/
You’re right, Chelsea! I have fixed the post. Thanks for catching that. I was going off of scattered understanding rather than real research. ?
Oh thank goodness, I was questioning my sanity, lol, almost didn’t say anything cause I wasn’t sure. The recipe sounds awesome, do you think it would take flavoring like a little mint well? I’ve always loved those little pastel mint seashells…
I hear you. I question my sanity all the time. My information is usually correct, though. So I’m glad you said something! I think they would be lovely with some flavoring. Try LorAnn mint extract maybe? I love those, too!
Awesome, I’ll have to try that, thanks!
Can you use this as a fondue to cover certain fruits? I am planning my daughters bday party and want to set out some covered fruit with white chocolate. Maybe I coud dip the fruits when it’s still in liquid form?
Thanks for the recipe and sharing your info to all of us out there navigating the world of “living without”. My son has multiple food allergies, do you think I could substitute the almond flour with rice milk powder? What is the action of a protein in making white chocolate ? Thanks, Debbie from Winnipeg
Hi, Debbie, Rice milk powder might work if it has enough protein in it (as almond flour has quite a lot of protein). But I haven’t tested it with that sub, so you’ll have to experiment!
xoxo Nicole
I remember a humorous book about chocolate I read in the early 1980s, before I had reached my double digits. There was one page on white chocolate. It had a dotted rectangle, and the directions were: to know what white chocolate smells like, scratch and sniff. To know what white chocolate tastes like, cut and chew. Years later, I learned on a tour of the Theo’s Chocolate Factory that white chocolate accepts other flavors really well, hence their key lime confection.
This recipe looks like it’s worth it.
xo,
Farida
Farida! It’s so lovely to ‘see’ you!
Really good white chocolate does have a flavor all its own, but it is very easily complemented, as you say. It’s not like the tofu of chocolate, though (ew). I love that you said it seems worth it. It really really is. Especially for people who, at best, shrug their shoulders at white chocolate generally.
xoxo Nicole
Nicole, Could you just make some and ship it to me? I cannot seem to get the hang of cooking “gluten free” Bonnie
You bet, Bonnie. ;)
Seriously, though, if you’re looking for a place to start, this is as good a place as any. This basically couldn’t be easier to make once you have the proper ingredients. Honest.
xoxo Nicole
Nicole, I love your recipes…but I think I love your sense of humor just as much!
Christin
Thanks, Christin! That made me happy. Some consider me an acquired taste, you see… ;)
xoxo Nicole
Hey Nicole…that looks amazing…my son doesn’t do nuts (so no almond flour for us). Would maybe Tapioca or another flour work? Whatcha think?
Hi, Tanya,
Another plain flour wouldn’t work. You need something with protein. If he does dairy, I’d do milk powder. If he does soy, soy powder. I haven’t tried soy powder, though, but you should give it a whirl!
xoxo Nicole
Yay! Thank you! The soy powder version did not work well for us. So now I am making this one, can’t wait to try one!
I’m in HEAVEN! I have been waiting all weekend in anticipation of this post. Thank you Nicole! I cannot wait until my little boy can try this for the first time :)
Hi, Michelle,
I’m so glad! Quick get some raw cacao butter. By the way, as a mom of a little boy, you really got me on that one. ;)
xoxo Nicole