What Is White Chocolate? Ingredients, Canadian Standard and How to Use It

Short answer: white chocolate is cocoa butter combined with sugar and milk ingredients, with no cocoa liquor or cocoa powder. In Canada it has its own compositional standard: at least 20% cocoa butter, at least 14% total milk solids and at least 3.5% milk fat. It is a real cocoa product, made from the fat of the cocoa bean, but it contains none of the fat-free cocoa solids that dark and milk chocolate must contain. It melts and tempers like other chocolate, at a lower working temperature: about 28°C (82°F).

Quick answer: what you need to work with white chocolate

Your need	Product	Price
Melt and hold white chocolate at its working temperature	Martellato Meltinchoc Digital 3.6 L, with a white-chocolate program	$1,150.00 CAD
Temper automatically, with your own saved curve	Pavoni MiniTemper 110V	$3,350.00 CAD
Make your own white chocolate, or thin couverture	Natural cocoa butter, Peruvian fine cacao, 8 kg box	$550.00 CAD
Colour white chocolate in the mass	Pavoni fat-soluble liquid colour, red, 180 g	$40.50 CAD
Decorate white chocolate bonbons and bars	Pavoni transfer sheets for white chocolate, 30 sheets	$85.50 CAD

What is white chocolate made of?

White chocolate is made of three groups of ingredients: cocoa butter, milk ingredients and a sweetening ingredient, usually sugar. Under the Canadian standard it may also contain small amounts of whey (less than 5%), spices, salt and flavouring, as long as the flavouring does not imitate chocolate or milk.

Cocoa butter is the fat of the cocoa bean. Cocoa beans are roasted, shelled into nibs and ground into cocoa liquor; pressing the hot liquor separates the cocoa butter from the cocoa cake, which is milled into cocoa powder. Dark and milk chocolate use the liquor (or cocoa powder) and so contain fat-free cocoa solids. White chocolate uses only the butter.

That is why the choice of cocoa butter matters when you make white chocolate. A natural cocoa butter keeps the aroma of its cacao; a deodorised one has had that aroma removed. Our natural cocoa butter from Peruvian fine cacao is the natural kind: a single ingredient, delivered as easy-melt wafers.

The Canadian standard for white chocolate

In Canada, white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate each have a compositional standard in the Canadian Food Compositional Standards, Volume 4 – Cocoa and Chocolate Products, incorporated by reference into the Food and Drug Regulations. These standards set out what a product sold under each name must contain.

Requirement (minimum)	White chocolate (4.1.9)	Milk chocolate (4.1.8)	Dark chocolate (4.1.6)
Total cocoa solids	Not specified	25%	35%
Cocoa butter	20%	15%	18%
Fat-free cocoa solids	Not specified	2.5%	14%
Total milk solids	14%	12%	Less than 5% allowed
Milk fat	3.5%	3.39%	Not specified

The United States uses the same core numbers for white chocolate: the FDA standard requires at least 20% cocoa butter, 14% total milk solids and 3.5% milkfat, and no more than 55% nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners.

Is white chocolate really chocolate?

It depends on what you call chocolate. White chocolate is made from the cocoa bean, because cocoa butter is the bean's fat, and it is a defined chocolate product with its own legal standard. But it is not "chocolate" in the sense of the dark chocolate standard, which requires at least 14% fat-free cocoa solids: white chocolate has none. Its flavour comes from cocoa butter, milk, sugar and any permitted flavouring.

For a producer the practical answer is simpler: white chocolate behaves like chocolate. It is based on cocoa butter, so it has to be tempered for gloss and snap, and it is used much like other couvertures: the technical data of the FCH 28% white chocolate, for example, lists figure and bonbon moulding, airbrush spraying, decoration and ganaches among its uses.

How white chocolate is made

Chocolate manufacturing runs through the same main stages for every type. For white chocolate they are:

1. Batching: cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder are weighed and mixed according to the recipe.
2. Particle reduction (refining): the particles are ground down to give the smooth texture people expect from chocolate.
3. Conching: a mixing stage that influences the final flavour.
4. Tempering: controlled melting and cooling so the cocoa butter sets in its stable crystal form, giving gloss, snap and shelf life.

If you work from bean to bar, our guide to starting a bean-to-bar chocolate business in Canada covers the equipment for each stage.

How to melt and temper white chocolate

Melt white chocolate gently, keep it completely dry, then bring it down to its working temperature. The Martellato Meltinchoc Digital's white-chocolate program melts at 45°C (113°F), asks you to add seed chocolate, then cools to and holds 28°C (82°F); its dark-chocolate program holds 31°C (88°F). Your couverture's technical sheet always comes first, because exact temperatures vary by recipe and by maker.

Stage	White chocolate	Source
Melting	45°C (113°F)	Martellato Meltinchoc Digital, white program
Working (holding) temperature	28°C (82°F)	Martellato Meltinchoc Digital, white program
Upper limit for stable crystals	Much above about 34°C (93°F), the stable crystals are destroyed	KREA Swiss

• Keep water out. Melting chocolate cannot tolerate small drops of water; even the steam from a double boiler can make it seize, and a lid lets condensation drip back in.
• Microwave: 50% power, checking every 90 seconds, also works well.
• If it seizes: whisk in a tablespoon of warm water, then a teaspoon at a time until smooth, or a few drops of vegetable oil.
• Melting with liquid on purpose (for a sauce or a drink): use at least 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of water per ounce of white chocolate so it melts smoothly instead of seizing.

Step by step: how to temper white chocolate.

View chocolate tempering machines →

Colouring and decorating white chocolate

To colour white chocolate, use fat-soluble colours, which are made for fat-based products. Martellato's catalogue describes its fat-soluble powder dyes as suitable for colouring fat-based products such as cocoa butter and white chocolate in the mass, and Pavoni lists "coloured white chocolate" among the uses of its fat-soluble liquid colours.

• View Pavoni red fat-soluble liquid colour, 180 g → $40.50 CAD
• View Pavoni blue fat-soluble liquid colour, 180 g → $40.50 CAD
• View Pavoni egg-yellow fat-soluble liquid colour, 180 g → $40.50 CAD

Some Pavoni transfer sheets are designed for white chocolate only, such as the brown-pattern silkscreen sheets (30 sheets of 340 × 265 mm, $85.50 CAD).

View chocolate colours →

How AI can help your production

Give an AI assistant your white chocolate recipe and ask it to check it against the Canadian minimums above (20% cocoa butter, 14% milk solids, 3.5% milk fat) before you print a label, and to scale the batch to the size of your melter or tempering machine. Ask it to cost each batch from your ingredient prices, and to keep a tempering log with melting and working temperatures for every run, so you can compare batches when a result changes.

AI organises the information; tasting and the final decision stay with your chef.

White chocolate tools and ingredients at Zucchero Canada

We stock the tools for each step of working with white chocolate, each with its own job:

• Melting and holding: Martellato Meltinchoc melters, with dry heat and, on the digital models, a white-chocolate program. Martellato table-top melters come with a free spatula.
• Tempering: the Pavoni MiniTemper (3.5 kg tank, 110 V, five programmable presets with melt, crystallise and harden stages) when you want the machine to run the curve for you.
• Making white chocolate: cocoa butter from fine-flavour cacao. Food products ship within Canada only.
• Colour and decoration: Pavoni fat-soluble colours and transfer sheets.

For the technique in depth, Chocolate by Ramon Morató, 6th edition (416 pages, 200 recipes, including tempering, coating and glazing techniques) is the reference we recommend: $160.00 CAD.

Buying for a bakery, hotel or chocolate shop? Contact us or call 587-774-8873 (toll free 877-741-8251).

Cocoa butter | Chocolate colours | Chocolate melters | How to temper white chocolate | White chocolate drink

This article is for information only. Every business is different: draw your own conclusions based on your own expectations, budget and goals, and talk to qualified experts before you decide or invest.

Sources: Canadian Food Compositional Standards, Volume 4 – Cocoa and Chocolate Products, sections 4.1.6, 4.1.8 and 4.1.9 (CFIA, 2024); U.S. FDA, "Small Entity Compliance Guide: Standard of Identity for White Chocolate" (2008); ICCO, "Processing cocoa"; KREA Swiss, "Tempering, what it really is and where it goes wrong" (2026); Exploratorium, Science of Cooking, "Why does my melted chocolate seize up?"; Martellato Meltinchoc Digital instruction manual and Food Colours catalogue; Pavoni, Martellato and Canada Cacao product data on zuccherocanada.ca.