Chocolate in the Freezer?
December 17, 2010
A question I hear somewhat frequently is, "Should I store chocolate in the freezer?"
A friend once told me that the best place to store chocolate is in your mouth. 🙂
Now for a more serious answer, the best place to store chocolate is in an odor-free, air-tight container surrounded by a 65 to 68 F air temperature with no more than 50% relative humidity. How’s that for precise?
Really, there’s no point to freezing chocolate. Freezing it or even storing it in the refrigerator will NOT extend the life of the chocolate! So there is no good reason to store in the freezer.
At the same time, there are good reasons for avoiding the freezer as a storage place. The main problem with getting chocolate so cold is that when you take it out into a warm room, the dramatic change in temperature causes condensation and, eventually, bloom.
Condensation is the accumulation of water on the surface of the chocolate. Chocolate contaminated with water becomes an unusable dry, hard, crumbly mess that won’t temper.
Bloom, the unpleasant gray/whitish coating that is sometimes seen on the surface of chocolate, develops when the condensation evaporates and leaves a layer of dissolved sugar on top.
There is one exception to my do-not-put-in-freezer rule...
When you make cookies or bread and the dough/batter happens to be on the warm side, the chocolate you add may melt a little while you stir it in. The result is smearing and discoloration to the dough. Here’s a neat trick: add very cold chocolate (put it in the freezer about 1 hour prior to adding to dough) and that will buy you enough time to mix it in without melting and smearing.
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I for one have kept my Lindt chocolates in the Freezer and it doesn’t turn white- the taste is awesome – when I take it out of the freezer – I put in my mouth and it cracks beautifully – so why is it that the experts say not to freeze it–maybe with some chocolates but with Lindt we find it lasts so long and no change in the quality of the taste. That’s my story —