What if I told you my absolute favorite homemade fudge of all time contains no dairy whatsoever? What if I told you it even uses everyday pantry ingredients, and takes just minutes to prepare? Now what if I said the version I make is even soy-free, gluten-free, and vegan? Would you believe me? Well, it really is true. This vegan fudge is a 5 or 10 minute recipe that is positively delicious.
The Best Holiday Fudge Ever, and It Just Happens to be Vegan
Thanks to creative bakers like Hannah Kaminsky, splurging at the holidays is fast becoming a reality for almost every special diet. From Caramel Sweet Potato Pie to Cookie Butter Pinwheel Cookies, Hannah has a sweet recipe for every occasion in her repertoire. So it comes as no surprise that Hannah has written numerous vegan dessert cookbooks.
This vegan fudge recipe was originally printed in her very first cookbook, My Sweet Vegan. She called it Five-Minute Coconut Fudge.
Hannah recently published the second edition of My Sweet Vegan with a new name. It’s now called Sweet Vegan Treats, but her vegan fudge recipe has remained untouched. It’s perfect as is. However, Hannah couldn’t resist taking new photos to show off this time-tested treat.
Special Diet Notes: The Best Vegan Fudge
By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, egg-free, gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free, peanut-free, optionally soy-free, vegan, and vegetarian.
- 1 cup dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 3½ cups powdered confectioner’s sugar
- ½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- ½ cup regular, full-fat canned coconut milk (do NOT substitute dairy-free milk beverage; can sub coconut cream)
- 2 tablespoons dairy-free buttery spread
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut, toasted (optional)
- Lightly grease an 8 x 8-inch square baking pan.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and cocoa powder. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Put the coconut milk and buttery spread in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, while stirring, until the buttery spread has melted and bubbles just begin to break at the surface.
- Remove the pan from the heat, and immediately pour the coconut mixture over the chocolate mixture. Let sit for a few minutes to melt the chocolate, and then vigorously stir until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla.
- Quickly pour the chocolate mixture into your prepared pan. Smooth out the top and evenly sprinkle it with the toasted coconut (if using). Gently press the coconut into the fudge.
- Let the fudge cool completely before cutting it into squares. To hasten the process, you can cover and refrigerate the fudge until set.
Pecan-Pumpkin Spice Option: Whisk 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice in with the sugar and cocoa. Omit the flaked coconut topping, and instead press maple-glazed pecans into the top of the fudge before placing it in the fridge.
This recipe is lightly adapted and reprinted with permissions from Sweet Vegan Treats by Hannah Kaminsky.
104 Comments
Hey, I tried the recipe and I love it!
I can see why this recipe is so popular. It’s delicious! Fudge set up perfectly. I used a coconut milk that had a nice thick cream and it was great.
Failed to set correctly – will not progress past the point of buttercream frosting. Every recipe I’ve ever tried using chocolate chips, confectioner’s sugar and some kind of milk has never set correctly, as compared to fudge using traditional techniques which I’ve had far fewer issues with.
On the plus side, it still tastes good. Just have to keep it in the fridge to keep it solid.
Hi Ryan, it sounds like you used a “milk beverage.” You must use full-fat coconut milk (or even coconut cream) – no substitutions! As long as you use a good quality coconut milk that sets up into cream when it chills, this will set up. A milk beverage (almond milk, coconut milk beverage, soymilk, etc) will not. Here’s my visual guide to coconut milk so you can see the difference -> https://www.godairyfree.org/news/what-is-coconut-milk
I hope that helps for next time!
Confectioners sugar and many other sugars are not vegan. They are made with bone char.
These days, most are. Look for organic brands, which should never be processed with bone char, and those labeled as or certified vegan. We use Trader Joe’s organic, but PETA has a great list to help out -> https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-sugar-vegan/
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The fudge was delicious, but it didn’t set up to cut into squares. I did sub dairy free milk for coconut milk and walnuts for the coconut flakes. My dairy free son doesn’t like coconut. I want to try again. Ideas of what I did wrong.
Hi Kristine, it won’t set up with dairy free milk beverage. You have to use full-fat canned coconut milk. Milk beverages (including coconut milk beverage) are like milk in consistency, real coconut milk is like cream and thickens when chilled – sorry, no subs if you want the recipe to work! I doubt he will taste the coconut – the chocolate takes center stage.
This was amazing. Made this for Christmas and got compliments from my entire family – which is comprised of all non-vegans. They not only couldn’t tell it was completely dairy free, but they claimed it was the best fudge they ever had and then proceeded to polish off the batch -_-
To prevent the difficult mixing situation some people were having, I started a double-boiler type situation on the stove in an advance and had the water boiling while the margarine/coconut cream were cooking in the adjacent/top pot on another burner. When it was time to pour the mixture over the chocolate, I only had to lift the top pot up/on top of the double boiler, dump the chocolate + sugar mixture in, and stir thoroughly for like 5 minutes before pouring it into a dish. Easiest recipe EVER!
We toasted walnuts in lieu of the toasted coconut, and tended to prefer the fudge after a few minutes of being taken out of the fridge to preserve chewiness. It’s one of the best desserts I can still eat. Thank you so much!!
Thank you for sharing your notes on the fudge Emily!
Hi! I made this last night and it turned out delicious! I used an ice cream scooper to plop the fudge in small mason jars and sprinkled each one with a different topping! A few people have mentioned they were having an issue with getting everything to melt down with such a small amount of the liquid ingredients and I too had the same problem, but fixed it by placing the bowl in a large pot filled with an inch of water (double boiler style, I had the flame on medium-high) and the hot steam melted everything down in about a minute. You have to work really fast or else the chocolate will start to set and you can’t re-melt it (I tried and failed)… so make sure to have ALL your mason jars set up and ready to be filled or your pan all ready, or it will turn into a crumbly consistency. I then placed the fudge in the refrigerator for it to firm up. Hope this helps! 🙂
Thanks for sharing your tips Kelly!
okay i can’t find my comment. but i tried a second batch and melted the chocolate chips first with the coconut milk and butter and i found it much easier that way for me. thank you for the yummy vegan recipe!
Thanks Lara! I just hadn’t approved it yet. Appreciate your tip and glad it worked out!
my chocolate chips don’t seem to melt with the addition of the warm ingredients. it seems kind of difficult with only 1/2 cup melted ingredients added to over 4 cups of dry ingredients. what am i doing wrong? : /
Thank you for this recipe!! Going to do the peppermint version for little Holiday gifting.
If you use the entire can of coconut milk it makes the most fantastic sauce. Not only can you put it on just about every dessert you can imagine you can also eat with a spoon!
Wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing this Mary!