with Gale Gand on how to store chocolate

Tweetie: I am never certain how to keep chocolates for Christmas treats - I don't have anywhere cool and I know they shouldn't go in the fridge - what should I do?

Gale: I just keep them at room temperature. If they're tempered properly, they should be fine. It's when you put them in the fridge that they "bloom"-- that's the cocoa butter starting to separate out from the chocolate, and it forms a thin layer of cocoa butter on the surface. They're totally fine to eat if they bloom, they just don't look gorgeous. Fat absorbs heat at a different rate than the other ingredients in chocolate, so it's unstable and floats to the surface, like cream floats to the surface of milk.

- From a Food Network online chat event