ASK THE EXPERT WITH WHITE RABBIT CHOCOLATIERS

With increasing numbers of people embracing a vegan lifestyle, we thought we’d find out a little bit more about vegan chocolate. According to Ed Hawkes it’s something White Rabbit Chocolatiers get asked about a lot, so we we put the question to the man who knows...

What is vegan chocolate?

All dark chocolate is vegan. In fact, not containing milk is one of the qualifying factors for dark chocolate! Many brands however, produce plain chocolate, which although seen as synonymous with dark chocolate it actually can contain milk, it just has a darker flavour.

Dark chocolate consists of cocoa mass and butter (both of which come from the bean); sugar to balance the flavour; soya lecithin - an emulsifier that allows chocolatiers to work with the liquid chocolate (otherwise it can be hard to work with); and a little vanilla for flavour! Naturally dairy free! Of course, there are other types of vegan chocolate, where rice and other dairy free milk substitutes are used - vegan ‘milk’ chocolate is available! That said, White Rabbit have never opted for any milk substitute products, based simply on aspects of quality. It’s a tough call to create a recognisable and flavoursome milk chocolate substitute purely based on the nature of the ingredients.

But recently White Rabbit have come across ‘Chocolat Madagascar vegan milk chocolate’ made with cashew milk - it’s just divine! This vegan chocolate is produced in Madagascar, with Madagascan cocoa beans and Madagascan Malagasy cashew nuts. It gives a creamy textured milky chocolate with a deliciously balanced flavour and has been going down a storm with the customers! What’s more it has the ‘Raise Trade’ label, which is given to chocolate that is produced at the source. These companies teach the cocoa growers how to produce chocolate as a final product, which helps to keep the profit within communities whilst teaching sustainable skills and providing jobs in the local area.