Make your own Homemade White Chocolate with cocoa butter, powdered sugar, powdered milk, and vanilla! For a Valentine’s Day twist, set in candy bar molds with a sprinkling of dried strawberries and rose petals.
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Foodie Extravaganza
Foodie Extravaganza is a monthly party hosted by bloggers who love food! Each month we incorporate one main ingredient or theme from The Nibble into recipes to share with you and Ellen of Family Around the Table decided to celebrate Chocolate Lover’s Month for today’s event.
Other foods celebrated in February include Carrot Cake, Great American Pies, Frozen Yogurt, Pizza Pie, Breakfast, Tortellini, Sticky Bun, Kahlua, Potato, Clam Chowder, and Banana Bread.
If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza. Posting day is alway the first Wednesday of the month. We would love to have you! If you’re a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board!
Homemade White Chocolate
For this #FoodieExtravaganza event, I wanted to see if I could tackle making Homemade White Chocolate. To be honest, I don’t see myself making this often, especially since I have access to some amazing chocolate in this area. It was more of a “to see if I can” and fun activity with the kids.
I did enjoy being able to control the level of sugar and additional flavors (I just love those specks of vanilla bean) in the chocolate. I look forward to experimenting with other flavor combinations.
For Valentine’s Day, I wanted to add a little pink and red to the chocolate, so I sprinkled chopped dried strawberries and rose petals over my candy bar molds before pouring in the tempered white chocolate. If you aren’t a white chocolate fan, you can also melt down good quality dark chocolate to pair with the strawberries and rose petals.
I haven’t seen cocoa butter in my local grocery store (though I also haven’t looked exceptionally hard or asked someone either). I ended up buying it on Amazon: Cacao Butter. Make sure you use one that is food grade.
Tips
I made this recipe over and over again with a few misses in the beginning until I had it just right. Here are some things I learned along the way:
- Make sure the cocoa butter is evenly chopped before adding to the double boiler. If it melts unevenly, then the temperature will more than likely get too high and cause the mixture to separate.
- Use a thermometer. I was having a lazy day while making one of my batches and thought I could just go by look. It didn’t end well.
- I blended the powdered sugar and powdered milk together in a food processor to make the granules even finer. This helps create a much more smooth chocolate. Before I tried this, my first couple of batches were definitely on the grainy side. If you want a sweeter chocolate, add about 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar. For less sweet, stick to 1 cup.
- Whisk a lot while bringing the temperature of the chocolate down. It will help hold everything together.
- If your mixture does separate while tempering and just won’t come back together, mix in a little vegetable oil. I read somewhere about someone adding in a little clarified butter, but haven’t tried it myself yet.
- If the chocolate seizes (most often from the introduction of liquid- usually from droplets from the steam of the double boiler), slowly adding additional water will actually help bring it back together. I really wish I learned this one a long time ago.
Check out what everyone else made!
- Brigadeiros by Caroline’s Cooking
- Browned Butter Dark Chocolate Marshmallow Muffins by Food Lust People Love
- Chocolate Dream Whoopie Pies by Jolene’s Recipe Journal
- Chocolate Tart with a Shortbread Crust by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
- Double Chocolate Chip Banana Bread by Hardly A Goddess
- Easy Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes by Our Good Life
- German Chocolate Cake Macarons by A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
- Healthy Chocolate Truffles by Simple and Savory
- Homemade Chocolate Praline Easter Eggs by Sneha’s Recipe
- Homemade White Chocolate with Strawberries and Rose Petals by Tara’s Multicultural Table
- Sachertorte by A Day in the Life on the Farm
- Salted Juniper-Dark Chocolate Panna Cotta by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
- Slow-Cooker Sweet Potato Chocolate Mole Soup by Faith, Hope, Love and Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
Homemade White Chocolate with Strawberries and Rose Petals Recipe
Adapted from Texanerin and Vibrant Life Army Wife
Homemade White Chocolate with Strawberries and Rose Petals
Ingredients
For chocolate bar topping:
- Crushed dried strawberries
- Chopped dried rose petals
- Sea salt
White Chocolate:
- 8 ounces cocoa butter evenly chopped
- 1-1 1/4 cups powdered sugar finely ground
- 1/4 cup powdered milk finely ground
- 1 vanilla bean
Instructions
- Sprinkle the strawberries, rose petals, and sea salt in desired candy molds. Set aside.
- In a double boiler set to medium low heat, melt the cocoa butter. Stir in the powdered sugar, powdered milk, and seeds from the vanilla bean until completely incorporated and bring the mixture to 120˚F (49˚C), no higher.
- Remove from heat and whisk the mixture for a couple of minutes, then place in the refrigerator for 5 minutes. Whisk again for a few minutes and continue the process, in and out of the refrigerator until the mixture drops to 79˚F (26˚C).
- Heat again in the double boiler up to 89˚F (32˚C), no higher. Pour the mixture into the prepared molds over the strawberries and rose petals. Allow to cool overnight at room temperature until solidified before removing from the molds.
Terri Steffes
This looks and sounds amazing. I didn’t know that making your own white chocolate was a thing. I really want to try it now.
Colleen - Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
So pretty! This makes me want to go right out and buy tons of chocolate molds!!!
Wendy
Very adventurous and I LOVE the flavor profile.
Jolene
Almost too pretty to eat. Almost 🙂
Christie
WOW! I never thought to make my own chocolate bars. This has truly opened my eyes. And those flavors look so exotic!
Anne Lawton
This sounds so good! I’m going to have to give this a try!
Barrie Mooney
Such a cool recipe- I honestly didn’t even know that they had bar-molds- so fun!
Karen @Karen's Kitchen stories
This is so cool! I have some cocoa butter which I had no idea what to use it for. I can’t wait to try this!!!
Caroline
I’m not generally a big white chocolate fan, but this looks great, especially with the flecks of vanilla and rose.
Tara
Thanks everyone!
Stacy
I don’t know how many times you had to try, Tara, but from the gorgeous photos, you really nailed it. What a fun challenge!
Tara
Thanks so much! I think I made roughly 6 batches. I had separation and flavor issues on the first couple. Definitely happy with the final product!
Lauren
Your chocolate is absolutely gorgeous. Thanks for sharing your tips and lessons learned!
David
A general rule when working with chocolate is that _any_ moisture will cause the chocolate to seize. In your case, I suspect you ran into a couple issues on your early attempts. The first is using vanilla extract in the recipe. Because vanilla extract contains water, this was likely one cause for the separation of the mixture you experienced. Second, cacao butter itself cannot ‘separate’ if heated too high. It has a smoke point of about 400 degrees. Up until that point, it will behave like any other cooking fat. Since there are no cacao solids present, there’s nothing to “separate”. Where the heat _does_ matter is when adding the milk powder. When you get the milk powder too hot, it does really weird things, tends to coagulate, and thus ruin your chocolate mixture.
So, here are a couple tips that should make this recipe about as smooth as possible without the use of a chocolate melanger.
1. Ditch the vanilla extract entirely. Use a whole, grade A madagascar vanilla bean. The vanilla bean should be 5 – 7″ in length. (Use 2 beans if you really want a ton of vanilla). After you’ve melted the cacao butter in your double-boiler, split the pod, and scrape out the seeds, and add them to the cacao butter. After all the seeds have been scraped, add the pod to the cacao butter as well (you’ll remove it later). Bring the temperature of the cacao butter up to about 220ºF and let the seeds and pod steep (simmer) in the cacao butter for 15 to 30 minutes. Try to keep the cacao butter at around 220ºF during this period. This will force all the moisture in the vanilla pod and beans from the cacao butter.
2. After you’ve steeped the vanilla, remove the pod(s). Remove the top pot from the double-boiler and place on a towel. Wipe down the outside of the pot with the towel to eliminate ANY water. Remember, water is the enemy. COOL the cacao butter to ~115ºF. I can’t remember where I read this, but milk powder starts to burn or become unworkable at 130ºF. My own tests have more or less confirmed this. Once the cacao butter is at 115ºF, start adding your powdered sugar. Slowly. A little at a time, whisking thoroughly as you do. The temperature of the chocolate will start to drop rapidly as you add more solids, so you may need to return the pot to the double boiler to keep the temp around 100ºF or so. After you’ve added all the sugar, repeat the process with the powdered milk. Slow, in increments, whisking continuously.
After all the ingredients are mixed, I’ve found that allowing the mixture to cool completely to room temperature, then reheating over the double boiler (stirring constantly) until 115ºF seems to help even out the texture of the white chocolate a little more. At that point, it should be ready for tempering. Divide the mixture in half, add your dry ingredients to one half, keep the other half at 90ºF. When the half with the dry ingredients has cooled to 82ºF throughout, start adding the the chocolate from the warmer half, stirring gently as you mix it in. You should end up with the whole batch arriving at ~86ºF. Now you’re ready to pour them into molds and let them set at room temperature. Unmold in 24 hours.
Tara
Thanks for your wonderful tips David!
David
Sure thing. I wish you all the best!
Amy
So, when tempering the chocolate after adding the vanilla, dry milk, and sugar, what other dry ingredients are to be added? I was a little confused with the instructions on the last paragraph in David’s suggestions about tempering . . . did I miss something? Also, will humidity affect this chocolate-making? We live in a tropical climate and I would love to make this as there is no good white chocolate available here at all! Thanks for all your helpful hints!
David
The “dry ingredients” I was referring to were the rose petals and dried strawberries. You’ll add those at the end, after the sugar and milk powder have been incorporated and you’re ready to start tempering.
David
Sorry, forgot about the humidity question. So, in general, if you’re making chocolate in an air conditioned space, relative humidity shouldn’t be an issue, since one of the benefits of a central HVAC system is to dehumidify the air.
Sugar is hydroscopic, so it’s possible it could pull some moisture from the air if the relative humidity is really high. I can’t really speak to the actuality of that occurrence, though, as it’s something I’ve not encountered myself. What you can do, though, is to take the sugar and warm it in the oven before adding it to your cacao butter. To do that, you can preheat your oven to 400ºF for 1 minute (to take the chill off), then set your oven as low as it will go, 165ºF or less, and then put your sugar in an oven-safe bowl and let it warm for a few minutes. Done right, that can help drive off some residual moisture that might be hanging out in the sugar crystals. When I do this, I only leave the sugar in until it’s fairly warm to touch…but not warm enough that it burns me. Average temp is usually around 115 – 120ºF.
Amy
Does it matter if the milk powder is whole or nonfat? Where I live we use whole and Ì would love to use it, if it doesn’t matter. Also, if I have no access to vanilla beans, should I still ditch the vanilla?
David
Yes, whole fat milk powder is perfectly fine to use. In fact, I believe it’s fairly common in higher quality milk chocolates.
If you can’t get vanilla beans locally, you can order them from amazon. Without the vanilla, you’ll lose that classic white chocolate flavor.
Tara
What David said!
Pauline
Hi Tara, thanks for this wonderful recipe! I’m wondering though, what non-dairy alternative could be used instead of the milk powder? I was thinking of using any nut butter but this might come out completely different. If it has to be powder, I don’t see what I could use instead.
David
Hi Pauline,
So, vegan milk chocolate will use something like coconut milk powder. The problem with coconut milk powder is that it inhibits the formation of the type V crystals in the cacao butter that leads to that nice crisp temper in commercial white chocolate. That means that you can’t use anywhere near as much coconut milk powder as you would regular milk powder. Too much, and the chocolate won’t harden or temper. Coconut milk powder also has a lower melting point, so the chocolate may end up softer than traditional commercial white chocolate. You can find coconut milk powder on amazon. You can also try using rice milk powder, or mixing that with some coconut milk powder. Only way to know for sure is to experiment.
Pauline
Thanks so much, David! Balancing coconut milk powder with rice milk powder sounds brilliant – I’ll experiment and let you know how it turns out 🙂