Super easy 3-ingredient vegan peppermint fudge topped with crushed peppermint candy canes. Crazy delicious and ideal for the holidays!
You guys, I am just delighted with this vegan peppermint fudge!
I mean, the fact that it’s peppermint already tells half the story, cos peppermint is awesome, but then add the word ‘fudge’ and there’s a whole other level of excitement brewing.
Ever since I made these Jaye has been making regular trips to the fridge to snack on them. They are soooo good.
The recipe is based on my vegan chocolate peanut butter fudge but uses cashew butter instead of peanut butter and adds in a bit of peppermint and voila!
How To Make Vegan Peppermint Fudge
It is so simple to make this fudge. Just add cashew butter and vegan chocolate to a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30-second intervals, bringing it out to stir every 30-seconds until melted together. Add peppermint extract and stir in.
Pour out into a parchment lined 8×8 square dish and smooth down. Top with crushed candy canes. Place into the fridge to set! Done.
Cashew butter is perfect for this as it’s quite neutral in flavor so it doesn’t compete with the peppermint and chocolate flavors but just blends beautifully and creates a wonderful texture.
And of course you can’t beat the crushed peppermint candy canes on top!
Holiday Fudge!
This recipe is sooo easy, so it’s perfect for holidays when you’re busy with friends and family, but still want to whip up some treats.
The best thing is that the fudge has this sort of praline thing going for it – the cashew nut butter isn’t entirely smooth – so there are these pretty little pieces of cashew that don’t mix properly and show up in the chocolate. So it’s smooth fudge, but also not, more like praline.
Make It On The Stove
If you don’t have a microwave you could make this on the stove. The best way would be to use a double boiler or make up a homemade double boiler by placing a heat safe glass dish over a pot with a couple of inches of boiling water and then letting your cashew butter and chocolate melt together this way.
If a double boiler method (even a homemade one) isn’t an option then you could do this in a pot but the main concern is that chocolate can burn really easily, so you want to make sure that you heat it very gently at low heat, stirring all the while until melted together and then proceed with adding the peppermint extract as per the recipe.
Storing and Freezing
Keep the fudge in the fridge so it stays nicely set and serve cold directly from the fridge. It will last at least a week and up to two weeks in the fridge. The chocolate isn’t tempered once it’s been melted down and reset so it melts a bit on your fingers as you eat it, all part of the fun!
It’s also freezer friendly so go ahead and freeze it if you want it to last even longer.
More Vegan Desserts (with Peppermint!)
Vegan Peppermint Fudge
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups Cashew Butter (375g)
- 2 and 1/4 cups Chopped Vegan Chocolate (393g) or Chocolate Chips
- 1 tsp Peppermint Extract
- Crushed Candy Canes Optional
Instructions
- Add the cashew butter and chocolate to a microwave safe bowl.
- Microwave in 30-second intervals bringing it out to stir every 30-seconds until the chocolate and cashew butter is melted and well mixed together.
- Add the peppermint extract and stir in.
- Transfer to a parchment lined 8x8 square dish and smooth down.
- Add crushed candy canes to the top.
- Refrigerate until set.
- When set lift the whole block of fudge out by lifting the parchment paper. Cut into squares.
- Keep stored in the fridge and serve cold directly from the fridge.
Notes
- Chocolate: Use a good tasting vegan chocolate to chop up for this recipe. It needs to be a sweet variety of vegan chocolate, a bitter dark chocolate wouldn’t work for this. Vegan chocolate chips would also work fine in this recipe, but I find chopped up vegan chocolate to have a better taste in the end result.
- Make it on the stove: If you don't have a microwave you could make this on the stove. The best way would be to use a double boiler or make up a homemade double boiler by placing a heat safe glass dish over a pot with a couple of inches of boiling water and then letting your cashew butter and chocolate melt together this way. Alternatively you could do this in a pot but the main concern is that chocolate can burn really easily, so you want to make sure that you heat it very gently at low heat, stirring all the while until melted together and then proceed with adding the peppermint extract as per the recipe.
Hi Allison. I was wondering if I could use Almond Butter instead. I don’t have any Cashew Butter. Thank you!! Have a Gratephul Day *~ Peace.
Hi Laurel – almond butter with chocolate does make an amazing fudge, but the flavor is very almondy, so it doesn’t work super well with peppermint. The flavor of almonds is too strong. So it makes a delicious chocolate almond fudge, but not a great peppermint fudge. So if you want to make a fudge with almond butter, I would follow the recipe but leave out the peppermint. 🙂 Cashew butter works best for this recipe as it has a more neutral flavor so allows the peppermint flavor to come through.
Could you give me a better idea of what to use for vegan chocolate? Chocolate chips or dark baking chocolate? What brand do you use?
Hi Esther, sure thing! I use slabs of regular dark chocolate that happen to be vegan. Stuff that tastes great when you eat it, so not the bitter dark chocolate, the sweet variety of dark chocolate. A bitter dark chocolate wouldn’t work for this. I have used Lindt in the past, their ‘swiss classic’ plain dark chocolate is vegan and works very well for this. I used Lindt when I made the chocolate peanut butter fudge that this recipe is based on. Right now I’m based in South Africa so I don’t think any of the brands I’m using now (local brands) will have overseas counterparts (not sure where you are). But basically, it doesn’t need to be chocolate chips (though it could be if that’s easy to get hold of for you), or baking chocolate, just regular slabs (around 4-5 slabs) of regular good tasting vegan chocolate. Thanks for the question, I will add more info in the notes section of the recipe. 🙂