Mondo Knows Facts

A drop of water makes chocolate seize

Melted chocolate stiffens into a grainy paste when moisture touches it Melted chocolate is a suspension of sugar and cocoa particles in cocoa butter, and the particles are normally coated in fat. A little water dissolves the sugar, which then clumps and drags the cocoa particles together, so the mixture turns thick and dull. Enough water, as in a ganache, reverses the effect by making a new emulsion. It sits in Mondo's food collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

American Chemical Society

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

More facts like this

Tags: chocolate, sugar, emulsion

A drop of water makes chocolate seize: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Melted chocolate stiffens into a grainy paste when moisture touches it. The figure is taken from American Chemical Society, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a food fact?
Yes. It sits on the Food shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.