Why Does Chocolate Turn White?

You finally remember the chocolate bar you left in the cupboard, open the wrapper, and guess what? Your chocolate bar isn’t smooth and glossy brown anymore. For some reason, it has turned white and looks almost dusty. 

At first glance, it can look like mold. And considering chocolate is supposed to stay brown, you may think that you need to throw away that chocolate that has turned white. But believe it or not, you don’t need to do that because it’s not spoiled at all. 

This strange coating is actually caused by a chemical process called “chocolate bloom.” In this article, we’ll explain why chocolate turns white and what’s the reason most chocolate brands try to prevent it at all costs. 

What Is the White Coating on Chocolate?

The white coating that you may have noticed on old chocolate is actually called fat bloom. While it slightly resembles mold and people sometimes even think it’s bacteria, it’s actually just the fat inside chocolate, which is completely natural. The main reason why chocolate turns white is that it’s sensitive to temperature. And when you leave a fat to sit somewhere too warm for a while, the fat inside it starts to melt. 

Later, if the fat cools back down, it doesn’t return to its original form and remains on the surface of the bar instead. The cooled fat that is already hardened into tiny crystals looks like mold on chocolate.  

So, you could be just spending an ordinary evening in front of the TV, half-watching something, scrolling through a few games, or looking at a live dealer casino session, only to realize later that the chocolate bar you left in the cupboard has completely changed color. Luckily, now you know nothing dramatic happened to it. 

Why Chocolate Is So Sensitive to Temperature

As we mentioned, the main problem with chocolate is that cocoa butter is very sensitive to changes in temperature. Because of the fact that chocolate is sensitive to even low temperatures, it can melt in your mouth, which is perceived pleasantly. But exactly the same thing leads to white chocolate coating.

Therefore, when the temperature keeps changing in your room, your chocolate can get warm during the day and then cool down again at night a few times. Eventually, enough cocoa butter can move toward the surface, and that’s how the white coating is created. 

Interestingly, cocoa butter itself played a huge role in the history of modern chocolate. For example, Fry’s Chocolate Cream was created by transforming cocoa butter from a waste product to a main ingredient in 1947. This simply means that without the fat inside it, chocolate wouldn’t have its familiar texture we all adore. 

How Do Chocolate Brands Avoid Fat Bloom?

Not many chocolate fans know that when Milton Hershey was developing the famous Hershey Bar, the main challenge was to create chocolate that would survive transportation over long distances. Back then, chocolate brands didn’t have a solution for keeping chocolate stable during transportation, and they needed to make sure it could survive long journeys without melting or changing texture.

This became especially problematic when chocolate turned into a mass-produced product across the world and the brands had to make sure that every bar reached customers in good condition. Despite the fact that the fat bloom is actually harmless, customers expected every bar to look smooth for a simple reason: they associated unusual discoloration with spoiled chocolate. As a result, the manufacturers encountered a big challenge. They had to control the recipe, and at the same time, they needed to take care of the temperature, packaging, and transportation conditions.

During this process of looking for a solution, they found something we now call tempering, which was how they ensured cocoa butter would be a stable crystal even when the temperature changed. Thanks to tempering, your chocolate bars from high-quality brands now stay smooth, glossy, and firm.

Is White Chocolate Safe to Eat?

Now, the answer to your most important question is positive. Yes, in most cases, you can absolutely eat chocolate that has turned white, even if you thought it was mold and you needed to throw it away. As we’ve explained, the white coating is just cocoa butter that was already part of the chocolate in the first place, now it just has a different location on the bar.

Still, if you don’t enjoy the changed texture, just make sure you’re not moving chocolate in and out of the refrigerator. But either way, you don’t need to waste a perfectly good snack just because it doesn’t look as pretty as it used to.