oat milk chocolate

a short and sweet primer on getting the best out of the big O

The backstory.

In 2017 when I created my first—and the first—oat milk white chocolate I grabbed a cardboard cylinder of organic toasted oats from Trader Joe’s on my way to my kitchen. I weighed out the oats and had the thought their flatness + the spinning grinder stones might lead to oats escaping the ensuing crush of granite against granite, so did a quick pulse and pre-grind in my spice grinder. Ground them up as finely as I could, and made a batch of oat milk white chocolate.

It worked so well, and I loved it, so then I made a batch of oat milk chocolate.

I used my steadfast 60% dark (grassfed whole) milk chocolate formulation that had worked swell for several years, and gave it a go. I guess the story would be more interesting if I had tested a swath of batches and different % ratios for both of these, but that’s not how it went down.

My oat milk chocolate trajectory started with whole oats that I bought in big bags from Bob’s Red Mill, then to gluten free certified whole oats from Bob’s (while oats are gluten free, it’s only oats that are milled on certified gluten free equipment that are, in fact, gluten free), to organic gf oat flour, to a stout heirloom oat flour, and yesterday, to a batch made with oat milk powder.

Oat milk powders can often include anti-clumping ingredients (everything from corn starch to tocopherols) so until I found this particular product I had avoided working with the powders. The one I used proudly proclaimed 100% organic oats nothing else, also gluten free, though in the fine print admitted that “oats are gluten free but these aren’t certified gf.” Well wtf.

At 14.00 per pound they should be organic, gf, and come with a ticket to Taylor Swift’s tour (a girl can dream, right?)

Trader Joe’s Oven Toasted Old Fashioned Organic Oats: $2.99 / 1 lb. 2 oz

Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Organic Old Fashioned Rolled Oats: $7.59/ 32 oz

Arrowhead Mills Organic Oat Flour: $3.77/ 16 oz

There’s the cost trade-off—whole oats and oat flour cost much less—but then there’s the time trade-off, which oat flour nips in the bud: whole oats need a pre-grind, whereas oat flour is ready to go. Though, if you have access to local oats (there’s a farm 8 miles from my kitchen that grows fabulous heirloom varieties), you may want to opt for the whole version and grind. Texture-wise, I have only experienced a thicker than desired texture with heirloom oat flour from Anson Mills, which also had a lovely tan hue. If you are going for as oaty-white as can be, the Trader’s oats gave me my whitest-looks-like-dairy-white-chocolate result, ever, and to this day.

But for today, it’s oat milk chocolate we’re talking about, not oat milk white chocolate, so color isn’t an issue.

Organic though, is. At least to me; I prefer organic for all the reasons: chemicals suck for birds and bugs and humans, not to mention soil health. All oats require water for growing, and large scale farming has large scale run-off. There’s also water usage, though oats don’t use as much as dairy. The real head slap is when we consider that not only does dairy suck up a lot of water, but in order for chocolate makers to work with it, the water has to be removed through spray-drying.

Dairy milk is 87% water, and cows consume 30-50 gallons of water every day to make it, which is almost 415 pounds of water per day, roughly 4.5 pounds of water to make just 1 pound of milk. That translates to roughly 1/2 of a gallon of water for every 1/8 of a gallon of milk.

Rolled oats take about 145 gallons of water to grow 1/2 pound of oats, or about 1 cup.

Info found here

I wasn’t thinking of these things when I crafted that first batch, or the next and next and many nexts after. But once we know, it’s impossible to un-know.

The happier side of this is once we go to the big O there truly is no going back. Oat milk everything :) changed the trajectory of my business by shifting to what was (then, in 2017 at least) largely unheard of: plant-based milk and white chocolate. Not coconut with its assertive flavor, not soy with its allergen and GMO concerns. From oats I’ve ventured to quinoa, cassava, rice, mesquite, cashew, almond, sesame, sorghum, sweet potato, and malted millet.

If you’ve ever thought about crafting oat milk chocolate, here’s a short and sweet tutorial to help you get started, including my OG 60% oat milk formulation. I hope it knocks your sock off.

yes you can tweak the % ratios!

Happy chocolate making,

Mackenzie