The chocolate that you should always keep in the fridge – and thebars to leave out
Xanthe Clay
18 June 2025 12:47pm BST
Chocolate is always cool, obviously. If you don’t agree, stop reading now. But – more controversially – should it actually be cold?
According to recent research, 53 per cent of Britons regularly keep their chocolate in the fridge, insisting it makes for a more refreshing way to get their fix in the summer – plus one that’s less likely to end in a sticky mess on a hot day (with a heatwave predicted this weekend, the average room temperature may veer into danger territory for chocolate, above 22-25C). But traditionalists are appalled, pointing out that cold dulls the flavours of the chocolate and, anyway, in a British climate normally there’s little risk of unintended melting.
The chocolate manufacturers are paying close attention. Hotel Chocolat already sells chillable, summer cocktail-flavoured chocolates, and Cadbury has entered the fray with “thermochromic” temperature-sensitive wrappers for its Dairy Milk bars. When cooled, vibrant summer-themed designs such as umbrellas, kites and deckchairs are revealed. It’s hardly earth-shaking, but a smart innovation nevertheless, says Natalie Alibrandi, the chief executive of Nali Consulting, which supports new food product innovations to boost “chocolate sales, [which] tend to decline in the summer months”.
So, gimmicks aside, is it really cool to ice your chocolate? Here’s the expert take.
Skip to:
- Eight favourite chocolate bars – to chill or not to chill?
- The argument for room temperature
- The argument for chilling
- Xanthe’s verdict
Eight favourite chocolate bars – to chill or not to chill?
Most experts agree that the best temperature at which to enjoy high-quality chocolate is room temperature, around 20C. But as the melting temperature of dark chocolate is up to 5C higher than white chocolate (with milk somewhere in between), giving white bars half an hour in the fridge on a hot day can’t be bad. I put these popular bars to the taste test to find out.
Cadbury Dairy Milk
Verdict: Chill
Review
Chilling dulls the sugariness and replaces the pasty texture with a lovely crunch – all without dampening the malty flavour that makes this the nation’s comfort food.
Toblerone
Verdict: Chill
Review
Honeyed and gently chocolatey with a mealy texture at room temperature, this turns crunchy, with nubbles of chewy nougat, when chilled. A spell in the fridge dials down the sweetness, too.
Tony’s Chocoloney Milk Chocolate
Verdict: Don’t chill
Review
With 50 per cent higher cocoa solids than Cadbury Dairy Milk (32 per cent rather than 20 per cent) and no added vegetable fat, this bar has a natural snap, so savour the fruity chocolate flavour at room temperature.
Green & Black’s White
Verdict: Works both ways
Review
Delivers a nice snap once chilled, and is slower to melt in the mouth so it lasts longer. The milky vanilla flavour comes through better at room temperature though.
Lindt Excellence Dark 90% Cocoa Chocolate
Verdict: Don’t chill
Review
At room temperature this has a sharp snap and melts to a velvety texture, with a lingering, espresso-like complexity on the tongue. Chilled, it’s as acrid as a spoonful of cocoa powder.
Ferrero Rocher Milk Chocolate and Hazelnut bar
Verdict: Chill
Review
Sugary and crumbly straight from the cupboard, the chocolate coating develops a pleasing crunch once cold, while the hazelnut flavour stands up well.
Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel
Verdict: Always chill
Review
Naturally gunky and mind-blowingly sweet, with little chocolate flavour, this one’s transformed by chilling, taking on a soft, chewy not-so-sweet toffee texture and flavour, with a crisp chocolate counterpoint.
Mars Bar
Verdict: Chill
Review
Gummy and soft at room temperature but an overnight shift in the fridge firms it up: slice it with a knife for a nostalgic after-dinner treat. Snickers are even better like this, though they’ll always be Marathon to me.
The argument for room temperature
Chantal Coady, a chocolate maker, retailer and champion of sustainably made products, who is also known as “the Chocolate Detective”, believes chocolate is best enjoyed at room temperature, “where the flavours can come through. Chilled chocolate is going to take longer to melt in your mouth, and you may not experience all of the subtlety when it’s colder,” she argues.
Also in this camp is The Telegraph’s Andrew Baker, the author of From Bean to Bar: A Chocolate Lover’s Guide to Britain. “Temperature is absolutely fundamental to the flavour of chocolate,” he stresses, “because the things that make it taste of something are released when chocolate melts. The more chilled it is, the less flavoursome it is, as a rule of thumb.”
Coady agrees, pointing out that chilling can even damage chocolate. “Imagine a bottle of cold water,” she says. “You bring it out of the fridge and it starts getting condensation all over it. The same happens to chocolate.” This layer of water causes the sugar to seep out of the chocolate, forming a white layer, “and then you get this crunchy, grainy texture, which is not nice”. (This is different from the smooth, white fat bloom which forms when chocolate gets too hot, and which can be corrected by re-tempering, i.e. reheating to a specific temperature.)
Another issue with chilling involves one of chocolate’s major ingredients, cocoa butter. This prized fat, extracted from cocoa beans and with the ability to melt at our body temperature (one of the factors that makes chocolate so seductive), is also an aroma sponge. If you do keep your chocolate in the fridge, wrap it meticulously, “or it will end up tasting like last night’s curry”, warns Baker.
The argument for chilling
Cold chocolate does have a place: it just depends what the chocolate is. Texture can be improved in poorer quality chocolate, which tends to break with a dull thud rather than the crisp snap of better quality bars. Chilling hardens the chocolate so it’s more “snappy” – music to the ears of cocoa connoisseurs, and making it crisper to nibble on.
As for taste, whereas dark chocolate is unlikely to be improved by time in the fridge (it “loses more of its flavour proportionally when chilled because it has more flavour to start with”, argues Baker), white chocolate, which is less complex and blander, with less to lose flavour-wise, “lends itself quite well to chilling. It has a higher cocoa butter content, so when it comes out of the fridge it melts more easily in your mouth.”
Ice cream chefs know they need to add extra sugar and acid to the mix, as the cold will mute the flavours. By the same principle, tooth-splittingly sweet, gooey chocolate can seem well balanced when chilled.
Baker points out that Hotel Chocolat’s box of Cocktails-to-Chill (£11.95 for 16) works well because “they have a sharp fruity flavour”, and that “a Mars or a Snickers is really quite satisfactory from the fridge, a sort of halfway house between a chocolate bar and an ice cream”.
The final verdict
Xanthe Clay
18 June 2025 12:47pm BST
I love an indulgent, nostalgic treat straight from the fridge – but if it’s flavour, not just texture, I’m after, then I try to remember to let each bite linger in my mouth rather than just chomping down. And who knows, if you, too, prefer chilled chocolate – which is harder, and less sweet – perhaps you’d like higher-quality chocolate that is lower in sugar and crisper at room temperature. Or not.
Your chocolate, your rules.