What if I told you that you could now make your very own vegan white chocolate at home from scratch with very little effort? Let's be honest, a lot of store-bought vegan white chocolate bars can be overly sweet and not great when it comes to melting or baking.
It can be pretty tough to get your hands on a high-quality vegan white chocolate. But I think you'll love this one. The secret ingredient? Besides the obvious one being raw cacao butter, I used coconut butter to give an even creamier consistency.
If white chocolate isn't really your thing, I've got you covered with this vegan milk chocolate recipe.
This vegan white chocolate is:
- Made using only 5 main ingredients (6 if you count the pinch of salt)
- Easy to make
- Made with minimal equipment
- Suitable for melting, baking, and enjoying on its own!
Ingredients overview
- Cacao butter: The main ingredient for homemade white chocolate, is the fat derived from the cacao bean.
- Coconut butter: This is sometimes labeled as "raw coconut" and usually comes in a jar. It's practically the same as creamed coconut, which comes in block form and can be found in the Asian section of most large supermarkets. You can very easily make your own raw coconut butter from scratch at home. All you need is raw coconut flakes, a food processor, and a little bit of patience!
- Cashew butter: This adds creaminess and prevents the chocolate from setting too hard. It also gives a lovely slight nutty flavor to your white chocolate.
- Icing sugar: It's important to use powdered sugar for this recipe as you want to avoid ending up with a gritty texture.
- Vanilla: The best way to add vanilla to this recipe is with a vanilla pod or vanilla powder. I don't recommend adding vanilla extract as this adds unwanted liquid to the recipe. Plus, real vanilla will also give you those lovely vanilla specs!
- Sea salt: I highly recommend this as it helps to balance out the sweetness and enhance the flavor of your dairy-free white chocolate.
How to make this recipe (with step-by-step images)
(Full ingredient quantities and instructions are in the recipe card at the end of this post)
- Add the cacao butter, coconut butter/creamed coconut, and cashew butter to a large heat-resistant bowl and place on top of a saucepan with simmering water (known as a bain-marie or water bath). Make sure the water does not touch the bowl but allow the steam to rise up and gently melt the ingredients. Be careful that absolutely no water splashes into the bowl as water will cause the chocolate to seize. Whisk until melted and smooth.
- Remove the bowl from the water bath and add the icing sugar. Whisk well until the sugar has been incorporated into the chocolate mixture. Then add the vanilla and salt and whisk again until the ingredients are evenly mixed.
- Divide the chocolate into 5 silicone chocolate molds and place it in the fridge to chill for at least 20 minutes. If adding nuts or fruit add these on top of the chocolate once it's in the molds.
Storage instructions
Once set, remove the bars from the molds and wrap them in baking paper, and place them in an airtight container. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Expert tips
Prepare your equipment and ingredients ahead of time
The process of making this homemade chocolate is pretty easy but does require some care. I always recommend preparing in advance of making a recipe so that you find yourself stopping halfway through to look for equipment etc. It's also a good idea to read the recipe instructions twice and help familiarise yourself with the process ahead of getting stuck into the recipe.
Avoid water and liquids
Water, and any other liquid that it. Traditional chocolate recipes are based on fats. If you add liquid, it will cause the chocolate to seize and go dull and clump together. So remember, the most important thing when creating a chocolate recipe is to AVOID LIQUIDS at all times.
Use powdered sugars
Avoiding adding water-based liquids means that it’s also a good idea to avoid using liquid sweeteners such as maple syrup or agave. The key is to use sugar that has a very fine powder consistency such as icing sugar. Using granulated sugar will give your chocolate a gritty texture, as sugar crystals need water to dissolve (which we’re avoiding in this chocolate recipe).
Variations
- Fruit: You can get creative and add freeze-dried raspberries or strawberries or dried fruit such as cranberries to these bars.
- Nuts: Such as pistachios, roasted hazelnuts, flaked almonds, and macadamia nuts.
- Lucuma powder: This adds a wonderful slight caramel flavor to the white chocolate. Add 1-2 tablespoons when adding the icing sugar and mix well.
- Superfoods: You can add any powders such as matcha (for green white chocolate), maca powder, or beetroot powder (for pink white chocolate). Use these powders sparingly and make sure you sift them to remove any lumps before mixing them into the melted chocolate.
- Toasted coconut: Add some toasted coconut or shredded coconut to these bars for a delicious coconut white chocolate bar.
- Nut-free: To keep this vegan white chocolate nut-free, you could try swapping out the cashew butter for sunflower seed butter.
- Sugar-free: You could also use a natural sweetener such as Erythritol or Steviol Glycosides. Bear in mind that unless the sweetener you use is powdered, you will have little 'sweetener' crystals in the finished product
Ways to use this dairy-free white chocolate
- Melting: This chocolate melts beautifully. You can serve it poured over dairy-free ice cream or other vegan desserts. Or use it for dipping in your chocolate strawberry bouquet.
- Coating: Use it to coat ice cream bars such as these blackberry white chocolate magnums.
- Baking: Chop up the vegan white chocolate and add it to baked goods such as these vegan white chocolate raspberry cookies.
- Vegan white chocolate desserts: This recipe can be used as the base of white chocolate ganache in recipes like this white chocolate pistachio tart. You could also use it for white chocolate mousse such as this raspberry white chocolate mousse recipe.
More vegan chocolate recipes
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below and consider leaving a comment as well, thanks!
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Description
EQUIPMENT
- Silicone chocolate moulds 5 x (Mold Size: 8.35 x 4.1 x 0.4 inch. Cavity Size: 6.3 x 3.1 x 0.4 inch. Volume: 3 oz)
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups (285 g) cacao butter
- ½ cup (80 g) coconut butter, (creamed coconut)
- 2 tablespoons (33 g) cashew butter
- ⅔ cup (80 g) icing sugar
- 1 (1 ) vanilla pod
- ½ teaspoon (3 g) sea salt
- Chopped pistachios, freeze dried raspberries, optional
Instructions
- Lay the silicone molds out on trays that you will easily be able to transfer to the fridge later. Cut the vanilla pod in half and scrape out the seeds with the back of a knife, and set the seeds aside for later. Discard the pod or use it to flavor other recipes.
- Add the cacao butter, coconut butter/creamed coconut, and cashew butter to a large heat-resistant bowl and place on top of a saucepan with simmering water (known as a bain-marie or water bath). Make sure the water does not touch the bowl but allow the steam to rise up and gently melt the ingredients. Be careful that absolutely no water splashes into the bowl as water will cause the chocolate to seize. Whisk until melted and smooth.
- Remove the bowl from the water bath and add the icing sugar. Whisk well until the sugar has been incorporated into the chocolate mixture. Then add the vanilla and salt and whisk again until the ingredients are evenly mixed.
- Divide the chocolate into the silicone molds and place them in the fridge to chill for at least 20 minutes. If adding nuts or fruit add these on top of the chocolate once it's in the molds. Once set, remove the bars from the molds and wrap them in baking paper, and place it in an airtight container. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Notes
- Add freeze-dried raspberries or strawberries or dried fruit such as cranberries to these bars.
- Add nuts such as pistachios, roasted hazelnuts, flaked almonds or macadamia nuts.
- Lucuma powder adds a wonderful slight caramel flavour to the white chocolate. Add 1-2 tablespoons when adding the icing sugar and mix well.
- You can add any powders such as matcha (for green white chocolate), maca powder or beetroot powder (for pink white chocolate). Use these powders sparingly and make sure you sift them to remove any lumps before mixing them into the melted chocolate.
- Add some toasted coconut or shredded coconut to these bars for a delicious coconut white chocolate bar.
- To keep this vegan white chocolate nut free, you could try swapping out the cashew butter for sunflower seed butter.
- You could also use a natural sweetener such as Erythritol or Steviol Glycosides. Bear in mind that unless the sweetener you use is powdered, you will have little 'sweetener' crystals in the finished product
Nutrition
*This recipe was originally published on March 26th, 2018. The recipe has since been improved and was last updated on October 4th, 2021.
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