Home-made white chocolate made of plant ingredients only is every vegan dream. Every time somebody says something about vegan white chocolate there are lots of questions, people get excited and all of the sudden nobody can thinks about anything but chocolate. Even for me, who are not a huge fan of sweets, white chocolate is something special.
What makes vegan white chocolate so special? Maybe because it’s hard to get and it’s a rare treat. Maybe the taste or colour? Or maybe this silent challenge thrown to all vegans, that we can’t veganise everything.
To be honest, white chocolate is quite easy to veganise. You just need fat, sugar and powdered milk. Simple, isn’t it? In theory, yes it is. But in real life you have to find this magical and crucial ingredient. This one product that makes your chocolate the real and delicious one. Cocoa butter. Many people thinks that is brown like cocoa powder. But suprinsigly it’s not. Cocoa butter is totally white, a little bit yellowish. It’s made by pressing cocoa beans. The brown powder widely known as cocoa powder is just by-product.
We got few types of chocolate. Dark one, where the main ingredient is cocoa powder. Milky one with powdered milk and suger and much less cocoa. And white chocolate in which the only cocoa ingredient is butter
There are also „compound chocolates”, in which instead of cocoa butter other fats are used, f.e. coconut one. And though they look and probably taste similar to real one, some connoisseurs will never qualify them as true chocolates.
Where to buy cocoa butter in Poland?
You should try to look for it in healthy food stores or on-line. In Cracow I found it in two healthy food stores: on Filipa Street and on Rzeźnicza Street. Price is quite hight: 35 zlotys for 250g which is enough to make 3 chocolates from my recipe.
When we finally got the cocoa butter, the recipe is much more simpler. You just need to melt it, add powdered sugar, and milk. Whisk well, few drops of vanilla extract and vegan white chocolate is ready. Besides homemade chocolate we gain the knowledge what it is really made of. Believe me, reading recipes or ingredients on the box is nothing compering to see how much fat and sugar is used.
And even though you will find a thousands of “healthy” chocolate recipes, where you can find all kinds of nectars, sweeteners etc, don’t get them makes you think that there are more nutritive (ok, maybe the one with stevia is fine). Sugar and fat are always the same. There is the same way of using them in our body.
My opinion- if we want to eat this unhealthy, sweet, delicious chocolate, choose the best one. And all chocolate fans agree, that the beat one is from cocoa butter and powdered sugar. So no more calories counting, looking for healthy benefits in coconut butter. It’s time for chocolate haven!
But before we start to prepare vegan white chocolate, few Tips&Tricks:
1. Double boiler is a basic and essential equipment.
2 .Powdered milk (I used soy one) should be grind (f.e. in a coffee grinder), to a really fine powder. Our goal is to produce creamy chocolate and powdered milk can have sand-like structure.
3. Do the same with powdered sugar!
4. In majority of recipes they want us to use small amounts of milk. I found it weird. If we add only 1 tsp of powdered milk to our chocolate, we get a waxy one, which is not delicious at all. So, you more!
5. In some recipes you can find powdered cashews or almonds. I don’t say that those chocoalte will taste bad, but I think for the first steps in making chocolates is better to use milk. I chose soy one, next time I’m planning to try using coconut or rice one.
7. Form to put the chocolate into is up to you. I prefer homey look of chocolates. Thin, flat, imperfect. If you wat calssic forms, you need to buy one. My way is to put aluminium foil into plastic, rectangular food container. To my recipe I recommend to sized: for thinner one- 20x12cm, fot thicer-18x12cm.
7. If you have kitchen thermometer, you can try to temper a chocolate.
How to temper a chocolate?
You need: kitchen thermometer, refrigerator, patience.
Tempering is a process of manipulating temperatures to makes proper form of crystals in a coconut butter. We want to have as many V crystals in our chocolate as it is possible. They make chocolate creamy and it’s not to hard. Of course they form in exact temperatures.
To have a lot of crystals V you need heat the chocolate to 49C, which melts all form of crystals. Next, we need to cool it to 26C, by putting it in refrigerator for a short periods of time. In 26C crystals start to form. When we reach 26C we need to heat it again, to 30-31C.
Tempering step by step:
1. Stirring constantly bring batter to 49C.
2. Put in in the refrigerator periodically until you reach 26C. Sir from time to time.
3. When it reach 26C, heat it again in double boiler to 30-31C. Remeber not to go above 32 C.
4.Pour into a form. Set to cool in room temperature, put in refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
Is tempered chocolate better?
Of course if you don’t have thermometer you don’t need to do this. It’s homemade vegan chocolate after all. If you make “normal” one, il will be also delicious. For me tempered one is more melting in mouth and has prettier, even clour. (in photos chocolate with pistachios is tempered, with sun-dried tomatoes is not). More important is to get rid of grainy texture (grinding milk).
Toppings:
Go crazy with toppings, but remember vegan white chocolate likes to shine on its own. I recommend to chose only one ingredient. Pistachios is a must in white chocolate. My favourite option is sun-dried tomatoes. I love the contrast the make with chocolate, but it’s not for everybody. You can also try: hazelnuts, amaranth popping, raisins, cardamom, matcha.
I think after the longest intro in the world, we can finally start to make homemade vegan chocolate. Just remember it will be quite different from store bought, it’s definitely more homey and imperfect.
Vegan white chocolate
with pistachios or sun-dried tomatoes
Ingredients:
12×20 or 12×18 bar
about 20 piecies
1/2 cup cocoa butter (85g)
1/2 cup powdered sugar (65g)
1/8 cup powdered soy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
about 25 pistachios roughly chopped
or
6 sun-dried tomatoes finely chopped
1. In a double boiler melt the cocoa butter. Grind to really fine powder: powdered milk and powdered sugar (sound ridiculous, but do it).
2. Add milk, sugar and vanilla to melted butter. Mix well. If you want to temper follow instructions above. If you don’t want to do this, just pour chocolate into form (silicone or coated with aluminium foil) in sizes: 18×12 or 20×12 cm. Add the toppings. Set to cool down in room temperature, then put in the refrigerator fo 1-2 hours or leave to solidify over night.
Store vegan white chocolate in cool, dark place up to few weeks.
Nutrition:
1 bar:
1028 calories
protein: 4 g; fats: 105 g; carbohydrates: 63 g, dietary fiber: 1,3 g;
iron: 2 mg; calcium: 100 mg; zinc: 0 mg
1 kostka:
51 calories
protein: 0,2 g; fat: 5,25 g; carbohydrates: 3,1 g, ditary fiber: 0,07 g;
iron: 0,1 mg; calcium: 5 mg; zinc: 0 mg
