There’s a vegan in my household so I decided to make some vegan chocolate cookies. Boy, are they good. I made them using an egg substitute and plant-based butter and to be honest, they are just like regular chocolate chip cookies. But, I had to make sure the chocolate chips were vegan. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? Just use dark or semi-sweet chocolate morsels. After all, only milk-chocolate contains milk.
There does seem to be an assumption that dark chocolate is vegan, or usually vegan. Before writing this up, I did a quick search and found many sources that make this assumption. Other sources claimed that dark chocolate ‘should’ be vegan, whatever that means, or that a lot of dark chocolate is vegan.
In addition to the chocolate chips, I’ve been looking for vegan dark chocolate lately in general. But most of the dark chocolate I found was not vegan. Most often, the dark chocolate bars or chips I looked at contained milkfat. This is a desirable and popular ingredient in dark chocolate products. And, as far as I can see, dark chocolate contains milkfat more often than not.
So, in other words, many dark chocolate products are NOT vegan! Just because it’s not milk chocolate does not mean it won’t have milk ingredients in it.
Here are some leading brands of dark chocolate that contain milkfat or other milk ingredients:
- Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate
- Cadbury Royal Dark ChocolateDove Promises Dark Chocolate
- Dove Dark Chocolat Candy Bars
- Lindt Excellence 78% Cocoa Dark Chocolate Bar
- Ghirarddelli 86% Cacao Dark Chocolate Bar
- Godiva Signature 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate (contains butter oil)
What is Milkfat In Chocolate?
You’re probably wondering what this milkfat business is about. Isn’t milkfat butter? Yes, butter is milkfat or a type of milkfat product. But, the milkfat used in chocolate is a product called ‘anhydrous milkfat.’
The term anhydrous means, basically, ‘contains no water.’ Butter contains milkfat and water. Anhydrous milkfat is butter that has gone through a process to remove the water and obtain a product that is at least 99.8% milkfat.
This milkfat is an important ingredient in chocolate as it affects the texture and melting speed. It makes the chocolate more creamy and helps it not melt too quickly.
If you are not vegan and do not require dairy-free chocolate, you will probably find that dark chocolate containing milkfat does taste better and has a better consistency.
Still, there are plenty of dark chocolate products that do not contain any dairy ingredients at all although they are usually quite expensive, even for dark chocolate.