Knowledge Base > Fran Costigan - New Year's Jumpstart

New Year's Jumpstart

Fran Costigan - New Year's Jumpstart

This event was on Tuesday, January 06, 2026 at 1:00 pm Pacific, 4:00 pm Eastern

Start 2026 on a sweet note. Join Chef Fran Costigan, Rouxbe Director of Vegan Pastry for a January deep-dive into the essential building blocks of vegan desserts. She’ll explore the … Read More.

Recorded

Question:

How chocolate is white chocolate?

— Hilda P J

Answer:

So I have a few different white chocolates to show you and I just have to look, I don't know. Oh, here you go. So this is Varona eca, it's their new white chocolate. It is absolutely delicious. It has, it's made with almond flour, so that isn't going to be good for people with allergies, but it's quite beautiful. White chocolate was considered the holy grail of, of vegan. How do you do it? But there are more people doing it. This one is called Almond Bliss because it's made with almonds. And I think I picked this up at a food show. This was from Augusta who is no longer making it. And way back in the day I used these chips, which are kosher and they are all, oh my gosh, it's like wax. So what makes chocolate vegan? I mean what makes white sugar wa let me start again guys. What makes white chocolate? White chocolate when chocolate is seen as brown, right? So white chocolate is made primarily it's the cocoa butter in the bean. The cocoa butter is not jerry, it's the fat in chocolate. And then sugar is added, oil is added, um, emulsifiers are added and sometimes some flavorings. And that is how white chocolate is made. It's very sweet. It's not my favorite thing, it is my, one of my son when he was growing up, it was one of his favorite things. But you can find, um, white chocolate now and if you want vegan white chocolate, look at the valona and pretty much that is the only quality white on the market right now. Or you can try making it yourself. It has a very different tempering, um, temperature and it melts differently, but it's terrific.
Fran Costigan

Fran Costigan

Director of Vegan Pastry

FranCostigan.com