Conserving Our Chocolates

A Box of Queen Anne Chocolates
Conservation jobs are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get! I was first contacted by Sarah from Queen Anne in 2020, the box of chocolates had been in her freezer since it was given to her and before that in another freezer since the 1970's!  The box dates from just before the company stopped production (c. 1973 to 1976). We took a quick peek before placing in our freezer and were impressed by how well they had survived earthquakes and likely some time defrosted. 

We spent a lot time testing how to best bring the chocolates up to a temperature they could be displayed at. Fortunately, Queen Anne provided us with some of their modern chocolates to test freezing and thawing. Failures were still completely edible!

The next step was to look at how to remove blooming or marks on the chocolate, carried out on more samples! Removal was successful although the chocolates were very sensitive to changes in temperature. Care had to be taken to test only while not hungry!

Finally it was time for the real box of chocolates! The box was brought up to fridge temperature in line with our best trial methods, and then to room temperature. It was found to have sugar seeping out of some of the chocolates, which had to be mechanically removed where visible and then the bloom marks removed. The result is a box of chocolates that still look edible. They are currently on display in a specially designed display case at the Queen Anne factory shop in Christchurch as part of their 100 year celebrations.

By Emily Fryer