Why Does Chocolate Go White, And Is It Safe To Eat?

After a trip back home to Ireland last year, I bulk-bought about 50 Tiffin Dairy Milk bars (they’re delicious but pretty hard to get in the UK). 

Saving such a precious bounty for emergencies, it took me a month to open one. By that time, for some reason, it had developed a greyish-white pallor.

I ate it anyway (if you know, you know). But was I right to, and why did it happen?

It’s a question of fat and sugar

According to chocolate company Hotel Chocolat’s site, the “white, chalky, and generally unattractive finish often found on the surface of chocolate” can come from either fat or sugar. 

“Fat bloom” happens when cocoa butter seeps out of its natural home before re-crystallising in a white layer on top of the bar. 

This can happen if the manufacturer doesn’t temper the chocolate well enough, though that’s unlikely to be the case for mass-manufactured bars. 

But it can also happen when you store chocolate at too high a temperature, causing the fat to melt. 

Then, there’s sugar bloom, which leaves your bar’s surface white and gritty. 

As with fat, this happens when the sugar in your chocolate loses its shape and re-crystallises on top of the bar. 

This can be caused by humidity or a sudden change in temperature (such as by storing chocolate in the fridge after bringing it home in a hot car). 

Humidity can cause sugar bloom too as the moisture dissolves the crystals, which host a disappointing reunion on your chocolate’s outer layer.

It seems the hot, humid cupboard directly to the side of my hob was not, in fact, the best place to store those treasured Tiffin bars. 

Is chocolate that’s turned white safe to eat?

Yes. It might not be as nice as the unbloomed kind, but it’s just fat and sugar after all.

Speaking to educational site LiveScience, chocolatier Jason Vishnefske, owner and co-founder of chocolate factory Santa Barbara Chocolate, said that you can still save bloomed chocolate if you hate the flavour.

“You can revive [bloomed chocolate] with quick microwave tempering, or use it in your baked goods that don’t require the tempered crystalline structure of solid chocolate,” he said. 

“Fondue is fabulous and easy,” the chocolate pro added. 

Though coming from someone who ate her own bloomed chocolate in about three bites over a sink, I have to say that option isn’t too shabby either.