Why Chocolate Turns White, and How to Stop It in an Australian Summer

By Emily Patrikakos· 11 August 2026

The white film on a chocolate that has been somewhere warm is bloom, not mould. What causes it, whether it is still safe to eat, and how to keep a box honest through an Australian summer.

By Emily Patrikakos, Brand Executive at The Gourmet Pantry.

The pale film on a chocolate that has been somewhere warm is bloom, not mould, and it is safe to eat. Fat bloom is cocoa butter that has migrated to the surface and set again. Sugar bloom is moisture that dissolved the surface sugar and left it behind as grit. Both are cosmetic, and both are avoidable.

The Cocoa Emporium cocoa, Marc de Champagne and wild berries truffle boxes with a bowl of

Fat bloom, sugar bloom, and which one you have

Above roughly 25 °C the cocoa butter starts to move, and when it sets again it leaves pale streaks on the surface. That is fat bloom. The chocolate has not gone off, though the texture turns slightly grainy, and dusted truffles hide it better than a plain block does because the coat is already matte. The dust has its own weakness: it takes on moisture and goes claggy, so an open box does not sit well on a humid bench.

The fridge is not the automatic answer. Cold chocolate pulls condensation onto itself the moment it comes out, and sugar recrystallises as a gritty white film that is worse again. That is sugar bloom, and unlike the other one you can feel it. If you do refrigerate, seal the box inside an airtight container and let it come back to room temperature still sealed. A cool dark cupboard wins nearly every time.

Telling them apart takes a thumb. Fat bloom smears and the chocolate underneath still snaps. Sugar bloom stays gritty and does not move. Neither is a reason to throw a box out, and both are a reason to keep chocolate out of a north facing window between November and March.

What a Belgian dusted truffle actually is

Nothing to do with the fungus. A chocolate truffle takes its name from the shape and the dusty coat, and the resemblance stops there. Inside is a soft, creamy Belgian chocolate centre; outside is a coat of unsweetened cocoa powder. That is the whole trick of it. The first half second is dry and faintly bitter, then the centre catches up and the sweetness arrives late.

Two practical consequences. The cocoa comes off on fingers, so these are a plate-and-napkin sweet rather than a handbag one. And they are best left in the box: tipping them into a bowl knocks half the dusting off and they turn up bald. Sit the open box on the board instead, which also makes them the least effort you can put on a dessert board.

The six lines, and who each one suits

Three of the six are the dusted truffles, built on the same creamy Belgian chocolate. The other three are not truffles at all, which is worth knowing before you order what you assume is a mixed set of the same thing.

Line	What it is	Buy it for
Belgian Dusted Truffles, Cocoa (150g)	The plain one. Creamy Belgian chocolate under unsweetened cocoa.	The box to buy if you are only buying one.
Belgian Dusted Truffles, Wild Berries (150g)	The same truffle with a sweet berry note through the centre.	Anyone who finds plain cocoa a bit austere.
Belgian Dusted Truffles, Marc de Champagne (150g)	The grown-up one. Champagne brandy against creamy chocolate.	An adult gift, and the box that reads dearest.
Milk Chocolate Roasted Almonds (180g)	Whole roasted almonds smothered in smooth milk chocolate.	The bowl on the table everybody picks at.
Milk Chocolate Liquorice Bullets (180g)	Soft liquorice pieces in milk chocolate.	Liquorice people, who tend to be decided about it.
Caramelised Cashew Brittle (140g)	Roasted cashews set in caramelised sugar. No chocolate.	Heat, travel, and anyone who prefers crunch to cream.

Marc de Champagne is a spirit, a brandy distilled from the grape skins and seeds left behind after Champagne is pressed, and that is where the flavour in the third box comes from. Treat it as a gift for an adult rather than something for the kids' table, and if alcohol matters either way for the person receiving it, read the ingredient panel on the pack rather than taking our word for it. Enjoy responsibly.

The flat price is the useful part of this range. Two boxes come to $25.90, inside most Kris Kringle caps, and two read as considered where one reads as an afterthought. Cocoa truffles plus the cashew brittle is the pairing we would send to somebody whose taste we did not know. For variety across a whole team, Candy Kittens do a similar job at a similar size.

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Posting chocolate through an Australian December

Bloom is a storage problem for eleven months of the year and a delivery problem in December. A box that leaves here in good order can still arrive streaked if it spends an afternoon somewhere hot, and nothing about the packaging changes that.

A sealed 150g box of The Cocoa Emporium Belgian cocoa dusted truffles with three loose tru

For anything posted in December, the risk is less the trip than the afternoon the parcel spends in a hot letterbox at the other end. Send to a workplace where you can, or ask for it to be left in the shade, and if the address is somewhere genuinely hot, the cashew brittle is the least fussy of the six. Australia Post confirms its Christmas cutoff dates in October and interstate parcels always close earlier than local ones, so treat mid December as the practical limit.

All six sit together on the The Cocoa Emporium range page at $12.95 each, with the rest of our chocolate range alongside them. Weekday orders placed before 12pm are dispatched the same day from our packing room in Corio, Victoria, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. If you would rather it turned up already packed with everything else, these are among the boxes that go into the Christmas hampers we build here.