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.
The Best Vegan Fudge
Ingredients
Method
- 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.
Notes
Tried this recipe?
Let us know how it was!More Sweet Holiday Treats from Hannah Kaminsky
Cranberry Red Velvet Cake
Gingerbread Pumpkin Pie
No-Bake Candied Apple Flan
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://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!
Can I still make without the chocolate chips ? I have everything but that
You can chop up chocolate – but no, it won’t work without chocolate.
The only problem is that it is not vegan, or even vegetarian. Confectioners sugar is made with bone char.
Hi Camela,
Fortunately, there are many brands of vegan sugar, powdered sugar included, that do not use bone char in the processing. Most organic brands – such as Wholesome Sweeteners – do not use bone char in the processing, and brands made from beet sugar. So enjoy!!
I made a couple batches (ginger and peppermint, each) of this fudge last night to send in for a potluck today. I found that the full recipe made too flat a fudge, so I ended up scootching the fudge into only 2/3s of the pan for the ginger fudge, and then made 1.5x the recipe for the peppermint, which resulted in a thicker piece. I found as others before me that the hot coconut milk and buttery stick mixture did not have enough residual heat to melt the chocolate completely, so with the first batch I popped the whole bowl over boiling water until it mixed smooth, and with the second batch I added the chocolate alone to the hot milk mixture and made a ganache that I folded into the powdered sugar and cocoa mixture. Both set up properly, have a nice consistency and flavor, so I think there is some leeway in how you follow this recipe. Thanks for the great vegan alternative to regular fudge!
Would love a vanilla version!
I have made this fudge a few times now, though I need to use more milk or cream then required in the recipe; typically, I use 2/3 cup to 1 cup instead of 1/2 cup. I have also used less sugar, no extract, unsweeted chocolate instead of semi-sweet chocolate, natural cocoa powder instead of dutch cocoa powder, and coconut cream instead of coconut milk all with good results. I can’t tell the difference between this fudge and regular chocolate fudge. I am allergic to dairy, eggs, wheat, and soy, so this fudge is a gift from Heaven.
Do you have a recipe for plain fudge? I tried using a basic recipe of condensed milk, butter, and sugar, but with coconut cream and coconut oil instead of condensed milk and butter. The end results were both decisively not fudgey, but I am admittedly a complete newbie to this type of activity.
Hi Jonathan, what are you seeking in terms of a “plain” fudge? Is there a particular recipe that you are trying to convert?
I mean a fudge not made with chocolate, like vanilla fudge. I tried some recipes which basically just called for sugar, milk, butter, salt, and vanilla extract which I omitted.
Ah yes, still working on that! 🙂
I used what we had in the pantry – coconut manna (butter) and coco nibs instead of chips. Because the nips didn’t melt I added another 1/2 C regular (love that creme on top) coconut milk. Delicious!! Thank you, I have my contribution to the next bake sale.
What a fun adaptation Nana – thanks for sharing!
I tried this, and I like it!! It just seems a little too sweet for me, and I had to use more coconut milk then required in the directions. It also seemed a little grainy, but that is probably because I made my own “powdered sugar” with a blender and cane sugar and cornstarch. Next time I might try melting the sugar into the milk! I really liked it though 😀 Where would you recommend buying dairy free chocolate chips from that aren’t ridiculously expensive? Or is there a way to make your own chocolate bars using cocoa?
Ashley, you can make your own chocolate. But for store-bought do you need allergy-safe chocolate chips (are you dealing with a life-threatening milk allergy or extreme sensitivity) or are you okay with the possibility of trace amounts of dairy in the chocolate?
In my experience, you are correct about the powdered sugar; I use confectioner sugar from Shoppers or Trader Joe’s powdered sugar, and the result is a very smooth fudge.
Do you think I could use peanut butter in place of the margarine in preparing the “Five Minute Coconut Fudge”?
Hi Gail, it would leave it softer and would change the flavor. If you want a PB flavor, but also want the same firmness, I would use part peanut butter and part coconut oil.
You might want to try using PB2 in the dry mixture instead
Are you suppose to put it in the fridge and for how long?
I prefer to keep it in the fridge. It never lasts past a few days in our house, so it’s hard to say! You can freeze leftovers for longer, if concerned.
I left mine in the fridge for a week, and it tasted no different.
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