Orange Creamsicle Fudge

These beautifully-colored keto treats are bursting with juicy orange flavor. With the gorgeous light coral color and delicious taste, they state: “Spring is around the corner!”. This Orange Creamsicle Fudge is also very versatile. Make the fudge in a silicone pan and cut into pieces — or create gorgeous tidbits in silicone chocolate molds. You can also make cute lollipops and use them as cupcake toppers (see the instructions below)! Serve these treats for Easter — or at any time of the year as fat bombs, or when you want to treat yourself or your loved ones. Your whole family will love them!

How to prepare the Orange Creamsicle Fudge

Orange essential oil and orange peel are great ways to enjoy brisk and fruity orange flavor also on a keto diet. They also play a vital role in this keto fudge.

One important tip to achieve the best and strongest orange flavor is to heat the orange peel in the saucepan with butter and coconut manna — and add the orange essential oil after heating the mixture, not before. So, when you heat the orange peel, you’ll get the maximum orange flavor out of it. And when you add the orange essential oil after heating, the oil retains its flavor and doesn’t evaporate as the essential oils evaporate very quickly, especially when heated — that’s why you use them with diffusers!

But let’s take a look at how to prepare these fruity — yet low-in-carbs — treats:

Have all the ingredients at hand.

Add 1 stick = 4 oz = 115 g unsalted butter to a saucepan.

Add also 4 oz = 115 g coconut manna…

…3 tablespoons Confectioner’s Style Swerve or powdered erythritol…

…and freshly-grated peel from 1 small organic orange (only the orange-colored part).

Heat over low heat…

…all the time mixing…

…mixing…

…until completely melted. Don’t let boil!

Remove from the heat. Add 2 drops (not more!) 100% orange essential oil.

Mix well.

Pour into silicone molds or into a silicone loaf pan. Here, I’m going to make cute lollipops. For the actual fudge version, please see the video in this post, i.e., how to prepare this treat in a silicone pan and how to cut it into pieces.

A spoon works best here.

Let set in the fridge overnight.

Here are the fat bombs you can see in the first photo.

Here we go, these are now nicely firm.

Remove from the molds. Be careful not to break the treats as they might be a bit fragile. If you have made lollipops, be super-careful with the sticks that they won’t get loose!

Here’s the fudge version as well.

And those fat bombs.

By the way, the lollipops make stunning edible decorations for low-carb cupcakes as well! Don’t these look just adorable!

How I came up with this recipe

I’m a real fan of everything orange-flavored, but naturally, when on a keto diet, the possibilities to enjoy anything orangey are scarce. Therefore, you have to be creative when trying to find ways to enjoy orange in natural, low-carb ways. Any artificial orange flavorings taste inferior, and they are bad to your health, too.

For years, I’ve used orange peel to add natural orange flavor to my keto treats. I think this hot chocolate recipe was one of the first-ever recipes using orange peel I posted here on my blog.

And for very long, I’ve planned to make something orange creamsicle themed. I have thought orange creamsicle smoothie or milkshake, bars, and also keto orange creamsicle fudge. The latter option sounded the most tempting and perfect for this spring.

So, I wanted to make a creamy fudge with orange flavor. Usually, I use heavy cream, coconut cream, or coconut milk if the recipe calls for anything creamy. However, for my keto fudge, I couldn’t use any liquid, because it simply wouldn’t work in a fudge (believe me, I’ve tried that as well! The result was inedible and lumpy!)

Actually, for my newsletter several years ago, I had created a fat bomb recipe with lime. The recipe contained coconut manna that lent a perfect, creamy mouthfeel and soft texture. I thought coconut manna is just an ideal option for this orange creamsicle fudge. And for my upcoming Finnish keto book (that I’m currently finalizing), I developed a recipe for Keto Orange White Chocolate that was using cocoa butter and coconut manna in addition to orange peel and orange essential oil.

In my lime-flavored fat bomb recipe, I use coconut oil in addition to coconut manna. The texture of those fat bombs is really firm. For my orange creamsicle fudge, however, I wanted to have softer, almost truffle-like texture and real melt-in-your-mouth feel.

And what do I use for my truffles to get that melt-in-your-mouth feel? — Butter! So, butter sounded like a perfect option for my orange creamsicle fudge as well.

Now, I had coconut manna and butter. For sweetener, I decided to use powdered erythritol, though stevia would have been a tempting option, too. But since the flavors are quite delicate in this treat, I thought stevia might lend too bitter and licorice-like aftertaste. Erythritol is more neutral and thus much better sweetener for this recipe. As a Finn, I do love licorice – but not with orange (though with berries like raspberry and lingonberry licorice is a huge hit!).

To get enough orange flavor, I wanted to add both orange peel and orange essential oil. Actually, I made some experiments only with orange peel for my orangey white chocolate recipe for my book, but orange peel didn’t give as much orange flavor as I had hoped. I also tried with only one drop of orange essential oil, but the recipe really needs those two drops (again, not more!) of orange essential oil for a really delicious and fruity flavor.

After adjusting the amounts of butter and coconut manna, I was delighted with the result. The recipe made soft, yet firm fudge, that was creamy and had a very fruity orange taste — with less than 0.5 grams net carbs per serving!

I think the best idea was to pour the mixture into silicone chocolate molds — or actually into lollipop molds and make beautiful patterns. Simply irresistible, and so good for any occasion!

Here’s the recipe for you to enjoy: