Like many chocolate lovers, I used to be a little snobby about white chocolate. It’s so sweet, I would get a headache just thinking about it. But when I noticed Valrhona was making a caramel-colored white chocolate using toasted milk powder, I was intrigued. Who doesn’t like the nutty flavor of dark caramel? White chocolate seemed like the perfect medium to carry that toasted taste.
When I did a little research, I learned that you don’t have to be a chocolate maker to make toasted white chocolate. You can caramelize white chocolate in under 30 minutes in your home oven! The only thing I find more amazing than this is how few people know about it. Which is why I’m trying to spread the word.
White chocolate caramelizes so beautifully for the same reason many people don’t like it: it contains a massive amount of sugar. If you stick a tray of chopped-up white chocolate in the oven at 250 Fahrenheit for 20 – 40 minutes (it will depend on your oven, just keep an eye on it), stirring every 10 minutes, it will go from this…
To this….
And finally, to this…
It’ll look a little grainy, but it turns into a beautiful ganache if you add cream and blend it with a hand mixer (it will be too thick for a whisk). I eyeballed my proportions, but I probably used about a 3:1 ratio of white chocolate to cream. Try to heat the cream to the same temperature as the melted chocolate, and add it a little at a time — the chocolate might look like it’s seizing at first, but keep adding more cream and it will eventually smooth out again into a beautiful, silky ganache. It’ll have the texture and taste of caramel, but with less stickiness and sweetness.
When your ganache is silky, pour it into a frame (I used a half sheet pan lined with parchment paper) and let it set. Use it as the filling for bonbons. Or melt it and pour it over vanilla ice cream. Or eat it with a spoon. The possibilities are endless.
You can even temper it to make bars and bonbon shells. I haven’t tried this yet, but here’s a drool-worthy pic of successfully tempered caramelized white chocolate bars from Celia’s lovely Fig Jam and Lime Cordial blog.
Happy caramelizing!
Chocolate Disorder 
What a wonderful idea! I’m a huge white chocolate lover , but didn’t know it could be caramelized! Thanks for spreading the word 🙂
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So happy you liked the post. It’s so easy to do and such a fun way to transform white chocolate into something completely different. Let me know how it goes if you try it!
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Yummy, I love white chocolate enough as it is so I can’t believe I came across this post, sugar levels are soaring! I will try and find a microwave method as it is much more convenient for me and if it succeeds, I will blog about it! And I’d eat it by the spoon 🙂
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Oh my god, I never thought of using a microwave! Fantastic idea – let me know if it works. I made another batch of this in my kitchen (different oven than the first time) last weekend and it browned to a perfect caramel color in 20 minutes at 250. I’m going to try to temper it this weekend and see what happens.
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