My favourite homemade white chocolate recipe is vegan, dairy free and instead of cocoa butter, it’s made with coconut oil. This white chocolate bar recipe is budget friendly and easy to make. You will need only 3 basic ingredients to make this white chocolate recipe – coconut oil, coconut powdered milk and icing sugar and a few optional flavourings.

White chocolate is not normally lactose free as it’s made with powdered dairy milk, which is why I wanted to create a white chocolate recipe that would lactose free. I’ve also replaced cocoa butter in the recipe with cocoa butter substitution – coconut oil, which is much easier to buy in regular food shop and it’s also cheaper than cocoa butter.

Why make this recipe?

Plant based & dairy free alternative to white chocolate
Budget friendly homemade white chocolate
No need to use cocoa butter to make this white chocolate at home
Great taste of coconuts – it tastes like a very smooth Bounty bar!

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What to expect from homemade white chocolate recipe

This vegan white chocolate without cocoa butter will taste like coconuts and won’t be as smooth as your regular white chocolate
You can’t use this chocolate for dipping strawberries or other fruit, it can turn fairly quickly into a sandy consistency and it’s best to use as a chocolate bar.
This white chocolate will melt at lower temperature than regular chocolate (but doesn’t have to be stored in fridge)

My top tips on making white chocolate recipe successfully the first time round

Use fine confectioners – fondant sugar (finer than icing sugar) if you want to have a very smooth chocolate
Add a tiny pinch of salt to bring all the flavours together as white chocolate can be quite sweet and have a fairly bland flavour

What makes this recipe work

Adding extra flavours (like lime) that work with coconut really makes this homemade white chocolate

Any specialist equipment needed?

This homemade white chocolate bar recipe is very easy to make and the use of a chocolate mould is optional. I’ve used silicone mould with a pretty bird cage motif, but you can use ice cube trays, baking tins or trays instead of moulds.

Bird Cage Chocolate Mould – Check price online
Mixing bowl (heatproof)
Mixing spoon or spatula
Scraper or large palette knife

Notes on ingredients & possible substitutions

Coconut oil

I’ve decided to go a whole hog and use coconut oil with the coconut powdered milk, but cocoa butter is also fine to use. Cocoa butter is what’s normally used in making white chocolate, but it can be tricky to get hold of and it’s also fairly pricey, which is why I used coconut oil instead of cocoa butter.

If you have coconut butter you will find that the chocolate will be much firmer than if you use coconut oil and won’t melt at higher temperatures and also will set very easily.

Coconut oil is the ‘softest’ out of all the different oils or butters I use for chocolate making, meaning that it, unfortunately, melts a lot sooner than cocoa butter or coconut butter.

Saying that my chocolates were perfectly fine when I was taking photos and I even left them on the table next to a warm radiator and they were still fine the next morning.

Coconut powdered milk

You can find coconut powdered milk in specialist shops or large supermarkets. Make sure that the powdered milk is very fine and if not take it through a blender or use a fine sieve to remove any large pieces. You might also need to double check the ingredients, because I found some brands that include lactose from dairy milk.

Alternatively, you can also use powdered soya milk. If you don’t need to make your chocolate vegan or dairy free, you can also use regular dairy powdered milk. Use the same quantities, no matter what powdered milk you use.

Icing sugar

If you want your homemade white chocolate bar to have a very fine texture, you need to use fine icing sugar.

If you can, you can also use fondant icing, which is even finer than icing sugar. Fondant icing is pricier than icing sugar and it’s not always available in smaller food shops, so I’m mentioning it only as an alternative.

You are also welcome to use other types of powdered sugars such as powdered monk fruit sweetener, or powdered stevia. They have a slightly less sweet taste, so expect the finished white chocolate to be milder in flavour.

Salt

A tiny pinch of salt dissolved in the warm coconut oil, really helps to bring the flavours together. Use fine cooking salt to make sure it dissolves straightaway and use the tinniest pinch possible.

How to make this vegan white chocolate without cocoa butter recipe at home

STEP 1

Melt the coconut oil slowly in a microwave or on a bain marie. Make sure that you don’t overheat the oil, if you melt about 2/3 the rest will melt by itself.

STEP 2

Add the salt and let to dissolve (take out the remaining grinds of salt if you feel that the salt hasn’t dissolved completely). This is quite important – the salt needs to dissolve in something because just adding it won’t work.

The problem is that salt doesn’t dissolve completely in oil, so stir the salt around with a spoon and then take out any remaining bits of the salt grains.

This way, you will still add the right amount of salt, but you won’t get large bits of salt in your chocolate. And believe me, even small pieces of undissolved salt feel like a large pieces in the chocolate!

STEP 3

Add the coconut powdered milk and stir in.

STEP 4

Add the icing sugar – 1/2 at the time, then stir and then add more if needed. You will get a fairly thick consistency.

STEP 5

Pour or spoon into the mould or pour into a baking tin lined with greaseproof paper. My chocolate got a bit too cold, so I’ve just smoothed it in with my flexible spatula and levelled the top with a scraper (use a cutlery knife if you don’t have one)

STEP 6

Leave to set in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

TROUBLESHOOTING THIS RECIPE

My chocolate is setting before I can pour it to my moulds

This is normal as you do want the white chocolate to set a little before you pour it. If the chocolate is setting too much, return it to the microwave for 5 seconds, stir carefully and pour to your mould.

You can also warm up your chocolate over simmering hot water saucepan (just place the bowl over the saucepan for 1-2 minutes) or use a (clean) hairdryer to warm up the chocolate in the bowl.

My white chocolate has sandy consistency

This can sometimes happen if you use a different type of ground sugar, not enough coconut oil or add too many other ingredients (such as freeze dried raspberries). You can correct this, by melting 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and adding it to your chocolate.

The sandy chocolate consistency is also happening when the chocolate is cooling down, so heating it up a little helps before you add more coconut oil.

Do I need to temper homemade white chocolate with coconut oil?

No, there is no need to temper white chocolate which is made without cocoa butter. As long as you gently stir the chocolate mixture before you pour it into the moulds, your white chocolate will set perfectly.

White Chocolate Flavour variation

White chocolate & Lime (add fine grating of fresh lime zest or lime oil)
White chocolate & Ginger Spice (or other sweet spices in dry powdered form)
White chocolate & Pink Pepper
White chocolate & Raspberry or Strawberry (add freeze dried raspberry or strawberry)

It’s best to use oil based flavours rather than water based as chocolate doesn’t tend to like water very much and won’t set very well.

Saying that if you are making these chocolates for immediate use, you can add a small amount (like a teaspoon or so) of a water based flavouring (if it’s quite thick) like honey, agave syrup or various flavoured sugar syrups.

As these sugar syrups are very concentrated in flavour and the water has been reduced, you could just about get away with using these without getting the chocolate to bloom.

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Batch size

This homemade white chocolate recipe will give you exactly the right amount to fill one mould – about 120-130 grams.

Scaling up this recipe

This recipe can be easily scaled up, just double or triple all the ingredients. I would recommend that you have two or tree chocolate moulds ready as once the white chocolate is ready it needs to be poured in to the moulds at the same time, otherwise, it will start to set.

Shelf life

All the ingredients used in this white chocolate recipe have a fairly long shelf life, so this chocolate is not going to expire or go off too quickly.

Saying that, the coconut oil does melt fairly quickly when in a warmer environment (or even a warm room), so I would still recommend to eat this chocolate within 10-14 days.

Storing your homemade white chocolate

This dairy free white chocolate is best stored in cold, dark place either wrapped in a cellophane bag or in a airtight container. Unless it’s very hot, this chocolate doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge. White chocolate will start to melt around 27 Celsius, so at that point I would recommend to place your homemade chocolate in the fridge or somewhere cooler, if you can.

This recipe and me

We have a lovely Turkish shop close to where we live and we always go there to buy stuffed wine leaves, ever since we’ve tasted them in Northern Cyprus. I love that shop as it has so many different spices and foods that you can’t buy anywhere else.

Anyway, last time I picked up a bag of powdered coconut milk and it inspired me to make this white chocolate bars from scratch. I’d normally use cocoa butter to make my chocolate, but with this recipe I thought I’d combine it with coconut oil and add a little bit of lime to make the flavour like a tropical island flavour or a drink.

Why not stay in touch…

I hope you enjoy making this recipe and if you do, I’d love to know what you think! Let me know in the comments below or find me on Instagram or Facebook and add the hashtag #cocoaandheart so that I can see your post.

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Magdalena