I’ve been meaning to make vegan white chocolate ever since I got some food-grade cocoa butter for Christmas. I used a recipe from the Bitter Sweet Blog and went with it. Man, it was a lot easier than I expected to make the ever-elusive vegan white chocolate and so tasty.
Put all your ingredients out and dole out the cocoa butter into a microwave safe bowl or double boiler. It can be kind of hard so you may have to break it out of the container in pieces, but don’t worry, this is normal.
Melt the cocoa butter in until liquid, if using the microwave try 30 second intervals as cocoa butter has a much lower melting point than chocolate and you don’t want to burn it. Once melted, mix in all the other ingredients and pour into your mold of choice. I used this candy bar shaped mold that I am quite happy with (and you can’t go wrong for $2.29 off Amazon). Put in the refrigerator to set for at least 30 minutes.
Voila, you have some vegan white chocolate! The possibilities are endless. I used it this time to shave onto a vegan peanut mousse cup pie, a recipe that I’ll post soon because it was the best dessert I’ve ever made. NOM. Look how pretty! Even I’m impressed with myself. It’s super impressive for something so easy.
If you’re going to eat the chocolate plain, it’s pretty sweet, so I’d try adding some dried cherries or cranberries, coconut flakes, walnuts, etc. to it and maybe doing half vanilla extract and half almond if you’re just using it as a candy bar. You could even make a vegan cookies and cream bar if you crushed up some Oreos or Newmans-O’s into it. I think that would be deeeeeeelicious. My next mission for it is to make vegan chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. The blog I got the recipe from also has a recipe for vegan white chocolate mousse, which sounds amazing too. The best part is that the cocoa butter makes goes a long way. I still have enough left for plenty more treats!
Hi Nicole, did you ever try baking with the chocolate? (sorry if you did and i didn’t see the post) i made the white chocolate from bittersweet’s blog and when i tried baking with it the chocolate melted out of the cookies 🙁
I picked up some cocoa butter today at my local health food store. Can’t wait to try this recipe to make vegan white chocolate s’mores using the Angel Food vegan marshmallow kit and homemade vegan graham crackers! YUM!!
to help the cocoa butter melt faster, instead of hacking away at it lol, just keep it in the fridge overnight and then throw on some gloves and grate it on a “cheese grater” or use a grating attachment on a food processor.
I just can’t avoid sugar crystals on homemade vegan white chocolate (even using confectioner’s sugar). I had no problems on temperature and color – I beated it up quickily with some ice under a bowl – and even on molding (I just did an easter egg and some white chocolate frogs a few minutes ago). Cocoa butter texture is just fine, but the sugar crystals are still there… Even tryed making some syrup but didn’t work at all. However, I got admit that this one is the best result I got until now, after many tryals… I’ve tryed ading some soy lecitin too, didn’t make a difference… I will try a white ganache using oat milk; I hope those tyne sugar crystals disapear then. But smooth white chocolate bar is what I am seeking for (just don’t know if we can get it on homemade ones whitout, at least, a wet grinder to conch it…).
Hmm, I’ve never had a problem with sugar crystals. I would say you definitely need to use powdered sugar though (the kind that looks white, not just fine sugar) since the mixture won’t get hot enough to melt regular sugar. Do you mean there’s still a “crunch” from sugar in the finished bar? I don’t understand what you mean by “ice under a bowl”? Did you try to make it solidify faster by freezing it? Perhaps your cocoa butter is the problem, are you sure it’s pure cocoa butter? Mine definitely came out smooth when I made it, sorry it didn’t work for you!
Hi. Thanks for answering. Yes, it’s exactly a crunch; so I’ll maybe try a different sugar. But it was powdered sugar; however I confess I made it home with a blender and passed it trough a very fine sieve just to be sure there where no larger crystal at all. That’s what I usually use on vegan-butter creams so I can still use organic sugar (there’s no organic powdered sugar in Brazil). The cocoa butter is 100% pure, brazilian, food-grade. And it melts perfectly in mouth. I’m absolutely sure that the problem is the sugar. About ice: I just wanted to temper the white chocolate properly before molding (and it really worked). As I said, the cocoa result is just fine but I really can feel the sugar there.
This recipe was a waste of my money, it would not mix, I had clumpy powdered sugar and soy milk powder and the cocoa butter liquid on top…Do not know what went wrong and my recipe did not make as much as your bar looks like it made…
I tried this recipe last week and had the same problem with the sugar and then tasted it and neither myself or my oldest daughter could eat it, it tasted gross to both of us.
I’m sorry to hear that, I’m not sure what happened as it always worked for me! Did you make sure to melt the cocoa butter and THEN add the other things in? That’s the only thing I could think of that would yield the result you mentioned. If your powdered sugar or soymilk powder is clumpy perhaps try mixing them together first with a fork until they’re a uniform fine powder and then adding to the melted cocoa butter?
As for the taste, that would vary greatly on the cocoa butter and soymilk powder you use. The first time I used just soybean powder and that was kinda strange tasting. The second time the actual soymilk powder and that was good to me. The type and quality of vanilla will also have a HUGE impact for something like this since it’s one of the stronger flavoring elements, so keep the 99 cent imitation vanilla extract away for this one!
Everyone having trouble with sugar crystals could try agarve nectar. I have used this in making raw chocolate and never had a problem with crystals forming.
Hi, I'm Nicole. I'm a vegan expat based in Berlin, Germany and also a digital nomad who works remotely while slowly working my way through as much vegan food as possible. Here you'll find vegan travel guides, recipes, and reviews from a plant-based perspective. Find out more here.
um, pretty sure that a white chocolate/vegan nutella dessert pizza at our pizza party is a must.
Oh man, dessert pizza sounds like an entire new realm of awesome!
Hi Nicole, did you ever try baking with the chocolate? (sorry if you did and i didn’t see the post) i made the white chocolate from bittersweet’s blog and when i tried baking with it the chocolate melted out of the cookies 🙁
I picked up some cocoa butter today at my local health food store. Can’t wait to try this recipe to make vegan white chocolate s’mores using the Angel Food vegan marshmallow kit and homemade vegan graham crackers! YUM!!
Matthew, vegan white chocolate s’mores sounds freaking amazing.
to help the cocoa butter melt faster, instead of hacking away at it lol, just keep it in the fridge overnight and then throw on some gloves and grate it on a “cheese grater” or use a grating attachment on a food processor.
I just found your blog, and can’t wait to try out this recipe. You’ve got so many tasty things to try, it will be hard to choose where to start!
I just can’t avoid sugar crystals on homemade vegan white chocolate (even using confectioner’s sugar). I had no problems on temperature and color – I beated it up quickily with some ice under a bowl – and even on molding (I just did an easter egg and some white chocolate frogs a few minutes ago). Cocoa butter texture is just fine, but the sugar crystals are still there… Even tryed making some syrup but didn’t work at all. However, I got admit that this one is the best result I got until now, after many tryals… I’ve tryed ading some soy lecitin too, didn’t make a difference… I will try a white ganache using oat milk; I hope those tyne sugar crystals disapear then. But smooth white chocolate bar is what I am seeking for (just don’t know if we can get it on homemade ones whitout, at least, a wet grinder to conch it…).
@VegVida
Hmm, I’ve never had a problem with sugar crystals. I would say you definitely need to use powdered sugar though (the kind that looks white, not just fine sugar) since the mixture won’t get hot enough to melt regular sugar. Do you mean there’s still a “crunch” from sugar in the finished bar? I don’t understand what you mean by “ice under a bowl”? Did you try to make it solidify faster by freezing it? Perhaps your cocoa butter is the problem, are you sure it’s pure cocoa butter? Mine definitely came out smooth when I made it, sorry it didn’t work for you!
Hi. Thanks for answering.
Yes, it’s exactly a crunch; so I’ll maybe try a different sugar. But it was powdered sugar; however I confess I made it home with a blender and passed it trough a very fine sieve just to be sure there where no larger crystal at all. That’s what I usually use on vegan-butter creams so I can still use organic sugar (there’s no organic powdered sugar in Brazil).
The cocoa butter is 100% pure, brazilian, food-grade. And it melts perfectly in mouth. I’m absolutely sure that the problem is the sugar.
About ice: I just wanted to temper the white chocolate properly before molding (and it really worked). As I said, the cocoa result is just fine but I really can feel the sugar there.
How well does this chocolate melt?
@Eva
It melted just like normal chocolate to me! The cocoa butter melts really well, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
This recipe was a waste of my money, it would not mix, I had clumpy powdered sugar and soy milk powder and the cocoa butter liquid on top…Do not know what went wrong and my recipe did not make as much as your bar looks like it made…
I tried this recipe last week and had the same problem with the sugar and then tasted it and neither myself or my oldest daughter could eat it, it tasted gross to both of us.
@Anonymous and @Amy
I’m sorry to hear that, I’m not sure what happened as it always worked for me! Did you make sure to melt the cocoa butter and THEN add the other things in? That’s the only thing I could think of that would yield the result you mentioned. If your powdered sugar or soymilk powder is clumpy perhaps try mixing them together first with a fork until they’re a uniform fine powder and then adding to the melted cocoa butter?
As for the taste, that would vary greatly on the cocoa butter and soymilk powder you use. The first time I used just soybean powder and that was kinda strange tasting. The second time the actual soymilk powder and that was good to me. The type and quality of vanilla will also have a HUGE impact for something like this since it’s one of the stronger flavoring elements, so keep the 99 cent imitation vanilla extract away for this one!
Sorry it didn’t work out for both of you!
Wwwoooow!! That looks fantastic! What a lot of excellent recipes you have here. Thank you for sharing!! 🙂
@Vegan Sweetie Thanks for checking out the blog and thank you for the compliment!
Everyone having trouble with sugar crystals could try agarve nectar. I have used this in making raw chocolate and never had a problem with crystals forming.