Did you ever find an expensive packet of chocolate after forgetting for months where you kept it? It’s probably way past its expiry date, but it seems like such a waste to just throw it away. In such a situation you’ve probably wondered and took out your phone to search the phrase ‘does chocolate go bad’ on your browser. You are getting the answer to that question along with the way to make sure your chocolate is safe to eat in this article.
Does Chocolate Go Bad
Chocolate will taste its best when it is consumed before its expiry date. But just because the expiry date of your chocolate is passed, doesn’t mean you can’t eat it at all. Chocolate remains safe to consume for a long time even though its taste and texture may feel a little bit different if it is eaten past its expiry date.
The amount of time you can keep a piece of chocolate in your pantry before eating it greatly depends upon what kind of chocolate it is, along with the quality and ratio of chocolate and milk used to make the chocolate.
The less milk used to make the chocolate, the longer it will last. Chocolate like white chocolate and homemade chocolate truffles will last for a shorter amount of time compared to dark chocolate or cocoa powder.
Milk Chocolate can last up to a year, and dark chocolate can last about the same. So even if you buy a gigantic bar of milk or dark chocolate, you don’t have to hurry to finish it.
You need to hurry a little bit when it comes to white chocolate. This rich milky chocolate should be eaten between four to six months. When it comes to homemade chocolate, you need to hurry, even more, those tasty treats should be finished within a week or two of making.
If you love making and eating chewy and chocolaty choco-chip cookies, you may have some chocolate chips in your pantry. Make sure to use them within four months or so. Don’t worry about the bittersweet cooking chocolate in your pantry. That stuff will stay good for use for about two years.
If you prefer to keep cocoa powder and make your chocolate from scratch, good news for you. That stuff practically lasts forever. Keep it in an airtight container, it will last you for a long time.
Along with these, the condition that you keep your chocolate in will greatly impact its shelf life. Keeping it in a refrigerator in a sealed packet is the best way to make it last longer.
How to Tell if Your Chocolate Has Gone Bad
You might feel your chocolate feeling a bit crumblier than usual, or may find that the taste of the chocolate is not as sharp as you probably remembered it if you eat it past its expiry date. But such chocolate is completely safe to eat.
The problem arises when you see clear signs of discoloration on the surface of the chocolate or smell any pungent odor that you are not supposed to smell from chocolate. If your chocolate smells like garlic or rotten food, that’s a pretty good indication that it belongs in the trash and you’ll belong in the hospital if you ate it.
If you see very visible spots of colors different than the chocolate, you’re better off not eating it. You’ll also be very sure that your chocolate has gone bad if you bite into it and it tastes funky beyond reason. Although we do hope that it doesn’t come to that, as biting into a piece of bad chocolate is probably not an experience you’d want to go through.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to tell if your chocolate has gone bad, you can check the candies your kid got for Halloween to make sure it is safe to eat. It might be a good idea to let your kid know how to differentiate good chocolate from bad so that your kid does not get sick from eating bad chocolate. And it might be a wise idea to store some cocoa powder in your pantry. Since that stuff rarely goes bad, you will always have a backup to make chocolate on your own in any chocolate emergency.