CHOCOLATE... why does chocolate start to turn whitish if it hasn't expired? is it still...?!
i have two boxes of chocolates... Whitman's and Stover's..my favorites... they are both within the expiration dates and i keep them refrigerated... they are starting to turn white and i was wondering should i throw them out? once this happens are they considered no longer safe to eat? what causes this?
Answers:
It's one of two things: Dehydration or Crystalization.
The refrigerator is extremely dry. It will suck the moisture out of almost anything that isn't really well-sealed. I'm guessing the chocolates are in a box or paper wrapper of some kind. That kind of packaging can't protect from the drying effects of the fridge.
The structure of chocolate (although it doesn't look like it on the surface) is a fine crystaline array. Tiny crystals of sugar, cacoa, fat, etc all suspended together. When that structure is exposed to colder temps, some of the crystals grow larger and will first create a white haze on the surface, then small white spots.
THE GOOD NEWS IS: It's still perfectly edible. Although I can't figure how it could last long enough.... I'm lucky if the box gets around the room more than once before it's all eaten.
Bon Appetit.
The cocoa butter that gives good chocolate its distinctive "snap" has several different crystal forms. Chocolate makers work very hard to get the right one, a process called "tempering".
Over time, chocolate loses its temper (as it were), especially if it gets warm, and the crystal forms change, and it shows up as white patches on the surface. That's called "blooming".
It's perfectly safe to eat. The chocolate's snap may not be quite as sharp as it was, but it'll taste fine.
The problem is actually worse in the refrigerator. The low temperature squeezes moisture out of the chocolate, and you get a DIFFERENT kind of whiteness on the surface, called "sugar bloom". The water carried dissolved sugars to the surface, leaving behind white powder when it evaporates. Again, the chocolate is perfectly fine, just a bit unsightly.
The perfect temperature for chocolate is 65 degrees and 50% humidity. I recommend setting the temperature and humidity in your entire house for optimal chocolate storage. We have to keep our priorities straight.
http://www.hub-uk.com/tallytip01/tip0045…
as long as the "white stuff" occurs during or shortly after the expiration date, I eat it. American chocolate and what they call milk chocolate is composed of sugar, cocoa and cocoa butter. It is the cocoa butter that seeps to the outside of the chocolate that you see as white stuff. This is the vegetable
fat that is contained within the cocoa bean itself. Look on the ingrediants list and you will see things like:
cocoa, cocoa butter (and other oils and fats), milk powder/solids, stearate (which is a waxy product that is white in its solid form) and many other things that are light colored or white. Just like oil floats on water, fat will "float" out of your chocolate because the cocoa solids are heavier (slightly) This is the same cocoa butter that people rub on their skin to moisturize it. Temperature is important
when you are talking about chocolate. Too high and it melts, too low and it won't manufacture properly.
Relax and enjoy it. If you want to do an experiment take some milk chocolate and some dark chocolate and maybe some premium from the same maker, put them in the fridge for the same am't of time and see
which blooms first. Then eat 'em before the kids get 'em.
Chocolate is a confection containing cocoa, sugar, and cocoa butter, an oil. As the candy gets older, some of the cocoa butter dries out, and the white stuff you see is just crystallization of the sugar. It's perfectly safe to eat, although it might not taste as good as when it was fresh.
I have some leftover Hershey Kisses in my desk drawer that have been there since last Valentine's day. I just ate one right now. It was a little white at the tip, but it was still tasty.
Its ok to eat but you shouldn't really keep chocolate in the fridge. This kind of whiting occurs when chocolate is constantly subjected to changing temperatures. Its actually better to keep it in a cupboard away from sunlight than in a fridge.
http://www.moolollybar.com.au/shop/
"Although it might look a little less appetizing than a lustrous, rich chocolatey-brown piece of candy, chocolate that has suffered bloom is still okay to eat."
http://science.howstuffworks.com/questio…
I think it's just exposure to air. It's okay to eat.
I learned this from a manager giving me a tour in a chocolate factory a couple decades ago...hey if that isn’t a dream job I don’t know what is...
If chocolate is cooled down too rapidly in the production process it can turn white. And, even though it will still taste okay, it will become less desirable. In the plants, they employ special machinery to make this process a precise and gradual one.
My hypothesis is that you are subjecting a product that was produced through carefully engineered temperature controls to rapid changes of temperature by putting it into and taking it out of the refrigerator. If the ambient room temperature is so hot where you live that this is necessary, then so be it. Otherwise, leave the chocolate out of the refrigerator. I am certain that the flavors in chocolate are inhibited by eating it cold anyway--not unlike the difference between drinking a fine chardonnay slightly chilled vs refrigerated. In the latter case, many flavors are masked by the cold.
