Keeping your chocolates into the summer

~ for Retail Store SALE in mid-May ~

So you bought a stack of our chocolates and you’ve gifted everyone you can think of? If you intend to consume your chocolates in the next several weeks to a month, you need only to follow two simple rules for chocolate storage:

1. Keep away from all odors. Even good odors taste bad when absorbed by chocolate, so avoid them all. For example: mothballs, gasoline, perfume, cigarette smoke, cedar, spices, sachets, etc.

2. Normal room temperature is fine for short term storage. If you’re hot, so are your chocolates. Keep your chocolates away from heat sources and sun light.

If you intend to squirrel away your chocolates in order to weather our four month down time, you’ll want to consider some of the following tips:

The primary rule is odor free storage. Refrigerators usually don’t qualify because of the many food odors. Plastic wraps or plastic containers will not totally exclude food odors and some plastic containers have embedded food odors. Beverage-only refrigerators that are odor free have been found to work very well. Freezers often work very well when the chocolates are double sealed to protect from freezer burn and condensation when defrosting.

Separate your chocolates into portions that you are likely to consume quickly. Warm summer temperatures can quickly cause rancidity in some of the confections and high relative humidity will collapse Sponge Candy centers.

Double wrap everything in an air-tight manner. If you use plastic containers, check them for residual food odors and consider wrapping the chocolates inside the the container..

Don’t store your peppermint or orange chocolates with any other chocolates because the flavors will transfer.

When you remove your chocolates from the freezer or refrigerator, let them come to room temperature before opening the air tight wrappings or containers. You don’t want the moisture in the air to condense on the cold chocolates and ruin their appeal.

The following candies freeze very well when following the above points: plain chocolate, creams, butter crunch, caramels, jellies, clusters, marshmallow, nuts and fruits.

Sponge Candy and chocolate drizzled popcorn are best consumed in the next few weeks to a month instead of freezing or refrigerating and follow the two simple rules for chocolate storage above. Some customers have reported having no issues with freezing these candies when paying strict attention to the tips above.

Enjoy!