How to prevent "sweating" chocolate covered strawberries?

Question

Last year for Valentines day, I decided I was going to be romantic and make some chocolate covered strawberries for someone special. I melted and tempered some milk chocolate. Then dipped the washed and thoroughly dried strawberries into the chocolate and put them on a plate in the refrigerator to quickly "set" the chocolate.

Later that night as my special someone and I were eating the chocolate covered strawberries, we noticed that there was condensation both on the outside and in between the chocolate and strawberry. It was delicious nonetheless, but I was curious as to why it was "sweating" and if there is anything I can do to prevent this if I decide to ever be romantic again.

Answer 1

Very simple: don't store your chocolate in the fridge. The ideal temperature for setting chocolate is 20°C. You can store it at less or more than that, but not too much. Setting in the fridge results in bad chocolate. Remember, when you work with chocolate, exact temperatures are extremely important.

Here a loose translation from a good article on chocolate/couverture coating:

This is the usual case. You only want a temperature difference of 12° to 13° between the chocolate and its environment as well as between the chocolate and the confect interior.

If the interior is colder than the room, the setting will happen "inside out". The cocoa butter film which gives a confect its shine will build on the inside, leaving the outside looking dull.

This is a really good case for some types of confect, but you can't do it with most types of filling (definitely not with strawberries). Cooling from the outside gives you a beautiful shine.

If you want to achieve a good shine, it is possible to put the confects in the fridge for a short time, but only after they have cooled to 20°C at room temperature. Don't let them fall to fridge temperature, take them out at 15°C. The continued cooling from the outside is beneficial.

This shouldn't happen. The temperature difference is too small, and the confect doesn't set quick enough. In this case, cocoa butter pools on the surface and creates a yellowish layer after it hardens.

When you make your confect, you should time the first piece. The setting should need 10 minutes. If it is less, you don't get all the possible shine. If it needs more, it will get grey or whitish yellow.

Answer 2

Chocolate will 'sweat' in the fridge if it cools too quickly, particularly if your fridge happens to be quite moist, which can quite often happen especially with lots of uncovered fruit and vegetables. Also if you think that a strawberry is around 90% percent water it is hardly surprising that water forms (possibly from condensation as it goes from a warm to cool temperature) on the strawberry.

The best place to store chocolate is somewhere cool and dry. I keep mine wrapped in foil, in a sandwich bag, in the 'larder'. In any case the best way to store chocolate dipped strawberries according to this website is by keeping them in the fridge then before serving while still cold, whips of the condensation as not to damage the chocolate.

Another website with tips on storing chocolate is http://candy.about.com/od/workingwithchocolate/a/storechocolate.htm.

Answer 3

Common Belgian wisdom: if you want to prevent chocolate from "sweating", you need to store it at around 15-19 °C, and certainly never ever store it in a fridge...

I suppose to some degree @rumtscho's explanation might explain why.

Answer 4

We served these at a fancy restaurant I worked in and we simply didn't cover them in the fridge. Leave them uncovered and they don't sweat.