How to Make Chocolate Stains Disappear

As promised early last week, here is this week's installment of the all-amazing Chocolate: The Consuming Passion, my new favorite book.

Our excerpt this week shows us how to remove chocolate stains -- that is, IF you actually have any chocolate left over to stain your clothes after you scarf it down in the midst of polite society...

Now folks, please remember that this book is not for everyone. Like Boynton said, this book is not "for those who cannot remember the last time they had chocolate, or who cannot anticipate within a reasonable time (three seconds) when the next occasion will be" (11). It is for the "chocolate elite", for those of us to live and breathe chocolate, for those of us who just might dream of chocolate and who dream not in color or b&w but in chocolate.

Removal of Chocolate from Porous Materials:

1. Scrape off excess chocolate with your fingernail (in polite society, use a demitasse spoon)
2. Apply cornstarch -- to absorb oils
3. Apply cleaning fluid; let dry
4. Wet fabric again and apply enzyme paste. Let stand 2 hours
5. Remove paste using spatula or gloves.
6. Wash fabric with water and detergent.

If Stain Persists

1. Apply few drops ammonia
2. Neutralize with few drops vinegar
3. Wash fabric again. The stain -- and perhaps the place where it was -- will be gone.

Alternate Method of Stain Obliteration

1. Melt 1/4 pound chocolate for each pound of fabric
2. Immerse fabric in chocolate and let stand
3. Rinse well

Removal of Chocolate from Non-porous Material
These spots are easily licked


- Taken from Chocolate: The Consuming Passion, written, illustrated, and over-researched by Sandra Boynton