The Trick To Grating Chocolate Without Causing A Melted Mess

Chocolate is always delicious, and grating it is an excellent way to add an extra oomph of chocolatey goodness to anything from bakery-quality chocolate cakes to your morning yogurt. However, if you've tried grating chocolate before, then you'll know how quickly it can turn into a melted, sticky mess. As it turns out, holding chocolate with a warm hand while running it over a grater is the perfect way to make it melt! Thankfully, there's a way to avoid the mess and turn chocolate into perfect flakes with no extra elbow grease.

To stop your chocolate from melting while you're grating it, the key is to refrigerate your chocolate until it's hard and then chill the grater for about a half hour. This will ensure the chocolate is hardened enough to easily grate while the chilled grater will help prevent melting. While you can freeze the chocolate before grating it, tossing room-temperature chocolate in the freezer can cause textural changes, so it's recommended to let it cool in the fridge for a day before freezing. That said, putting it in the fridge will typically harden the chocolate enough to make it perfect for grating.

Depending on whether you are using one of the most popular chocolate bars or a solid block of chocolate, you can also use a vegetable peeler to create thin chocolate slivers. However, this is easier to do with a thicker block, as thin bars can break and splinter if you're not careful.

If you've grated more chocolate than you need, don't toss it in the trash. Instead, save it for sprinkling over waffles and pancakes, topping ice cream, or zhuzhing up your coffee or a luxurious hot chocolate. Plus, saving grated chocolate is easy; you just need space in your fridge or freezer.

When storing chocolate in the fridge, you'll want to place it in an airtight container or ziptop bag. An airtight container is essential because chocolate is very susceptible to picking up outside flavors. That's one reason you should always store chocolate away from other groceries. When stored correctly, grated chocolate will remain fresh for up to a year in the refrigerator.

Now, when freezing, you can prevent grated chocolate from sticking together in a container by freezing it in an even layer on a baking sheet before storing it. This will firm up the chocolate and make it so every bit stays separated. Once hardened, you can put the chocolate in an airtight freezer bag or container. Frozen chocolate will maintain its quality for up to 18 months. As an aside, keep in mind that bringing frozen chocolate to room temperature too quickly can encourage a sugar bloom, a white film that develops on chocolate caused by sugar dissolving from moisture exposure. While safe to eat, it does impact the grated chocolate's appearance.