A few days ago I shared my recipe for honey-sweetened chocolate chips, and they are fabulous! I have been testing chocolate chip cookie recipes, both sprouted flour and almond flour versions, and they turn out really well. But some people who are on GAPS (a starch- and grain-free diet), cannot tolerate cocoa powder. Enter my white chocolate recipe.
White chocolate is fragrant and delicate, scented with vanilla and sweetened with raw honey. The floral notes from the honey and vanilla are perfect juxtaposed with the smooth creaminess of the clean, organic cocoa butter.White chocolate has long been a favorite of mine since childhood. I remember going to the shops by my house in California growing up, and either choosing double-dipped peanuts or white chocolate ribbon from the bulk section of the candy store. But I also used to buy pogs and Sanrio trinkets, but that’s beside the point.
I have been learning a lot about what my body craves over the last couple of years after reading Nourishing Traditions. I realized that fat isn’t bad after all. And if I was craving fats and sugars, then it was because my body was desperately trying to get some real food! So now I am happy to say that I have found that good, traditional fats have made a lot of the difference for my health.
Since tackling the idea that I could make my own GAPS-legal, honey-sweetened chocolate (and then making chocolate chips out of them, oh yeah!), I have been determined to make the white chocolate version work as well.
I was not sure I would be able to pull it off, since in the traditional chocolate recipe there is either chocolate liquor or cocoa powder mixed in. I imagined that would give the chocolate more stability than white chocolate, but I am happy to say that is not the case. White chocolate can be yours too, to use in cookies and cakes, or simply to make into bars and candies.
You can also use cocoa butter as a one-for-one butter substitute in baked goods. Try using it in a cake or a quickbread and see how the flavor is enhanced with a hint of chocolate that isn’t overpowering.
Equipment Needed:
- large glass bowl and medium saucepan OR double boiler
- heat-proof rubber scraper
- large glass pan OR jelly roll pan
- good knife for chopping into chocolate chips (optional)
- cutting board
- immersion blender
A note on cocoa butter: Cocoa butter is the white solid fat that comes from the cocoa pod. It is most recognizable as “white chocolate”, which is simply cocoa butter sweetened and flavored. The cocoa butter fat is much easier to digest for GAPS people when compared to cocoa powder or chocolate in it’s typical bar form. Fortunately, I have an excellent source of cocoa butter on my resource page. The cocoa butter is pure, organic, fragrant, delicate, and absolutely gorgeous!
(Even so, after your digestive problems have subsided, you can start consuming cocoa powder if you can tolerate it on GAPS. You can see the official answer here, in the GAPS FAQ page under “cocoa”.)
Honey-Sweetened White Chocolate
2 cups (16 ounces) cocoa butter (buy cocoa butter here)
3/4 cup raw honey (buy raw honey here)
scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean (buy vanilla beans here)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (buy high quality extracts here)
- In a glass bowl set over simmering water, melt cocoa butter completely. Turn the heat off and add honey and vanilla seeds from scraped vanilla bean (reserve the bean for another use), whisking until smooth. Add vanilla extract and whisk until smooth again.
- Remove bowl and set aside to cool. After 30 minutes, use an immersion blender to blend the honey back into the liquid. Repeat every 30 minutes (depending on how warm your kitchen is) until the liquid starts turning opaque again but is still pourable.
- Pour into molds or cupcake liners to make candies and bars.
Honey-Sweetened White Chocolate Chips
2 cups cocoa butter (buy cocoa butter here)
3/4 cup raw honey (buy raw honey here)
scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean (buy vanilla beans here)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (buy high quality extracts here)
- In a glass bowl set over simmering water, melt cocoa butter completely. Turn the heat off and add honey and vanilla seeds from scraped vanilla bean (reserve the bean for another use), whisking until smooth. Add vanilla extract and whisk until smooth again.
- Remove bowl and set aside to cool. After 30 minutes, use an immersion blender to blend the honey back into the liquid. Repeat every 30 minutes (depending on how warm your kitchen is) until the liquid starts turning opaque again but is still pourable.
- Pour into a glass pan or jelly roll pan and let harden at room temperature. Then cut and remove with a spatula in large pieces.
Chop into small bite-size pieces.
Use in chocolate chip cookies or other baked goods!
Cocoa butter is difficult to find, and even when you do it can be low quality and have a rancid taste. Fortunately, I have a tried and true source for pure, organic cocoa butter on my resource page. Check it out by clicking here!
This post is a part of Weekend Gourmet, Monday Mania, Traditional Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, The Mommy Club, Healthy2Day Wednesdays, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Full Plate Thursday, Fight Back Friday, and Fresh Bites Friday.
have you used any cocoa butter but the one you refer to? I bought some really wanting to make my own dairy free white chocolate, and it was disgusting, it tasted like i was eating lotion (very flowery). I checked to be sure, it was food grade. So now I have this very expensive jar of something I consider to be inedible…time to look for alternative uses I guess!
I’ve used the Wilderness Family Naturals kind on my resource page, and the one from Mountain Rose Herbs. But I’ve not tried any other brands. What kind did you get? I’ve heard that even food grade cocoa butter can go rancid if the manufacturing isn’t up to par.
I can’t wait to try both this recipe and your chocolate chip recipe. Thanks for sharing!
Goodie!
Thanks for sharing this recipe. After reading your previous article I ordered cocoa butter off the internet with the intention of making white chocolate. All the commercial white chocolate has soy lecithin in it an we avoid all soy. Since I am breastfeeding, I can’t have regular chocolate due to the caffeine in it but I can have white chocolate. Now I have a recipe to try, although I may substitute stevia for some of the honey. I can’t wait to get my cocoa butter in the mail!
Yay! I actually am needing to order more soon, what with all my mad experimenting!
Thank you soooo much for posting this. I can’t have chocolate. It gives me terrible migraines. I love white chocolate but the chips from the store leave a lot to be desired. I was hoping you’d do white chocolate chips as well. Hurray!!
Oh good, I’m glad you’ll try this one! I kept hearing from people who couldn’t tolerate chocolate and cocoa powder that they wanted white chocolate and cocoa butter recipes. I think my next attempt will be to replace the butter in a baked good with cocoa butter and see what I can come up with!
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I saw this post after we’d spent days testing our own version, oops! Was happy to link to you as a paleo alternative to the version we made in today’s post: White Chocolate Strawberry Velvet Cake Balls: http://paleoparents.com/featured/white-chocolate-strawberry-velvet-cake-balls/
Thanks!
Stacy
PaleoParents.com
I think the thing that excites me the most is that you can have chocolate for breakfast and not feel bad about it. You could even offer the kids chocolate for breakfast and be the coolest mom ever! Not that I would do that. lol
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I am interested in trying this recipe. Is the item # for the Cocoa Butter CACAOBU1? I want to make sure I get the correct one. Thank you.
Yes, that’s the one!
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I’ve just created some SCD white chocolate which is similar to yours. I used some yogurt cream in my recipe. It’s not EXACTLY like chocolate but it tastes quite nice. I’ll have to try your recipe. What does a cup of cocoa butter weigh in grams, do you know?
I’m going to put a link on my post to let people know about your recipe since they might like to try that too.
Hi, so I made this white chocolate over the weekend. I’m in Arizona and I don’t know if my kitchen would ever cool down enough at this time of the year so I ended up putting the bowl of cocoa butter and honey into a larger bowl of ice water and blending as it chilled and that worked great. The taste is delicious – I used Mountain Rose Herbs cocoa butter and just bought another pound so that I can experiment with this some more. Only one problem – I baked the chocolate chunks in cookies this weekend and they completely melted away leaving big craters in my cookies. I was wondering if anyone else has had luck using these in baked goods? I think I will just stick to using the chocolate chunks as garnish on cooled baked goods, or in raw desserts. All in all I am thrilled with the white chocolate – I’ve always loved white chocolate, I just wondered if there was a trick to get it to not melt away during baking? Thanks for this great recipe!
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Hi – how many times should I do the stirring every 30 minutes please? How do I know when it’s ready to be poured?
Thanks
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When you say 2 Cups of Cocoa Butter, what does that mean? Is it in chunks, grated, or melted to get that measurement?
I meant to clarify that and never did. Thank you for reminding me! I mean 16 ounces. I use a kitchen scale to make sure I have the right amount.
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Has anyone tried this without the vanilla bean seeds? I am itching to make this, but don’t have any on hand…
Hello~
I tried making this recipe the other day… and ew! I know it was something I messed up and not the recipe itself. I do not have an immersion blender. I tried the Vita-Mix and that didn’t work. Do you think a food processor would work?
Looking forward to making this recipe as white chips to throw in banana “ice cream”.
Thanks in advance!
I can’t think of anything that will work beside the immersion blender! The mixture has to cool as you continue to mix it, and as it cools it hardens. If you can watch it until just the right moment when it gets hard enough to stay emulsified, but soft enough to pour into a mold, then that will work.