What is White Chocolate

Though its origins remain somewhat mysterious, white chocolate is said to have been created in Switzerland in the 1930s as a way to put excess cocoa butter to good use. technically, it’s more of a derivative than a legit choco sib. Think of it as a sweet, creamy blank canvas—decadent on its own for those who want a hint of richness and smooth texture, but mild enough to complement fruits, nuts, and even other types of chocolate.

But white chocolate isn’t all sugar and spice and everything nice (read: butter). It can be particularly difficult to melt and can clump if heated too quickly or at too high a temperature (and no one wants that). To avoid this, Michelle suggests microwaving your chocolate in 30-second intervals until the mixture is just melted. This will allow your chocolate to melt slowly and evenly for smooth, swoon-worthy results.

In the U.S., the FDA mandates that white chocolate contains at least 20 percent cocoa butter, 14 percent milk solids, and 3.5 percent milk fat. Sugars and other sweeteners must be limited to no more than 55 percent of the product.

How to make 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 nonfat dry milk. If you’d like to use nonfat 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 (affiliate link) powdered coconut milk, 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.

INGREDIENTS

4 ounces (112 g) edible raw cacao butter, chopped

4 tablespoons (48 g) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening*

1 tablespoon (16 g) smooth natural cashew butter (almond butter is fine, too)

1 cup (115 g) confectioner’s sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

*You can replace the shortening with an equal amount, by weight, of cacao butter. The resulting white chocolate is much richer.

DIRECTIONS

In a medium-sized heat-safe bowl, place the cacao butter and shortening. Heat indirectly by placing the bowl over a 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.