09-07-2025
This own-label white chocolate tastes better than a Milkybar: 29 supermarket bars tried and tested
Purists may claim that it isn't chocolate at all, but the sweet, mild flavour of white chocolate is curiously comforting.
According to Chantal Coady, the chocolate maker and retailer known as 'the Chocolate Detective', it's actually not that surprising: the sweet lactic notes 'might be the closest thing to breast milk', she explains, and trigger a subliminal sense of childlike bliss – for some of us at least.
White chocolate is legally chocolate as long as it contains at least 20 per cent cocoa butter and 14 per cent dry milk solids, but there's another reason that connoisseurs should not completely dismiss it, says Spencer Hyman, the co-founder of speciality chocolate retailer Cocoa Runners.
'Even though it doesn't have the tannins and anthocyanins that you get in dark or milk chocolate, the cocoa butter itself actually has some flavour and aromas,' Hyman says. This is especially true when the cocoa butter hasn't been industrially deodorised to remove its natural scent, although sadly most has (want to taste the real deal? Try Chocolarder's 40 per cent pure white, made with undeodorised cocoa butter; £6.95 for 70g).
Having tasted 29 bars from the high street (saving a high-end product taste test for another day), I can confirm that there are still good options to be found on supermarket shelves to satisfy that white chocolate craving – including cooking chocolate.
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Traditionally this is higher in cocoa butter than regular chocolate, and designed to melt evenly: could it be more delicious to eat?
Read on to discover which version is worth adding to your cookies, and which bar is best for a nibble.
The taste test
Zero-star white chocolate
