The Absolute Best Way To Caramelize White Chocolate

Caramelizing food can make practically anything taste better, from onions to butternut squash. But have you ever tried caramelizing white chocolate? This process essentially occurs when you heat up sugars, which oxidizes them and adds deliciously toasty flavors, along with a rich brown hue. While it can work in any food that contains sugars, like the aforementioned savory ingredients, white chocolate offers so much sweetness that it's an ideal candidate for caramelization. While it does contain some cocoa in the form of butter, it has much more sugar than milk or dark versions, meaning much more material to work with when exposed to heat.

But what's the best way to go about caramelizing white chocolate? It's possible to do so by toasting it in the oven, but this can take up to an hour, and you may have to take it out to stir every 10 minutes. For a much faster method, heat your white chocolate on the stove instead. While you will have to keep an eye on it, it should only take up to half an hour to get the nutty, delicious smell and flavor you're looking for.

So if you want to caramelize white chocolate over the stove, here's how to do it. If you have a bar, chop it up first; but if you have discs, chunks, or chips, you can simply place them directly in a saucepan over the stove. When you don't add anything to white chocolate, like in this case, it's in danger of burning if it hits over 110 degrees Fahrenheit — so make sure you heat your pan at the lowest temperature possible. Almost the entire time the stove is on, get a whisk or spatula in there to stir and avoid burning.

At about the halfway point, you may get worried when it looks like your chocolate is thickening into a paste-like substance. But keep exposing it to low heat and stirring, and it should smooth out. You'll know you're good to go when the color of the chocolate completely morphs from white into a nutty brown, where it will almost look like light caramel itself, and the consistency becomes nice and drippy. Once it's off the stove, make sure to let it cool completely (unless you're using it for a drizzle), then break it up into chunks to munch on, or grate over a dessert.