There's White Stuff On My Chocolate! Is It Still Usable? Good Questions

Q: I bought chocolate discs last year to make the home-made peppermint patty candies that you have on your site. Time got away from me and I never made them. This year I want to make them and pulled out the chocolate discs that I bought last year and they have that "old" chocolate look with the white stuff on it. Will this white stuff go away when I melt it? Will it come back when it then dries on my candies?

Sent by Kelly

Editor: Kelly, the good news is yes, you can use the chocolate. Here's a good explanation of bloom on chocolate:

• Chocolate Bloom: Good or Bad?

Readers, any other comments or advice on this?

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Related: DIY Peppermint Patties

(Image: Washington Post)

Comments (6)

The white stuff is actually the fat migrating to the top of the chocolate. This happens when there are changes in temperature. When you temper the chocolate for use in the peppermint patties, the fat will mix back into the chocolate. Enjoy your homemade candies!

oops... just threw out some old chocolate for this very reason earlier today. wish i'd read this first!

It's called "blooming," and is exactly as nerdycellist says.

Blooming can change the texture of chocolate slightly - makes it gritty. That's why it's not as tasty to eat straight. But if you're melting it down, you'll be fine.

There are 2 kinds of bloom, fat and sugar.

Fat bloom is fixable, sugar bloom isn't.

If your chocolate was stored in a damp place, then you probably have sugar bloom and you don't really want to eat that chocolate it will be gritty and have an inconsistent flavor, fridges are the worst culprit of this.

If your chocolate was just stored in a warm place it's fat bloom like everyone else was talking about. :)

Thanks all! I melted it down and it worked great!