Today I had planned to make a project using my Wilton candy melts. I pulled out all of my bags of candy to see what colors I had available to use. I was actually quite surprised at how many bags I had stored in my baking area. I knew I had not bought all of the bags recently, which got me wondering if any of them had expired.
I looked all over the bag, but did not see an expiration date. I did see each of the bags had a code in the lower left hand corner of the bag. The date posted though did not make a lot of sense. I was pretty sure that 14 was the year 2014, but I was not sure about the other numbers. Well it turns out that it is a date, but you have to do a little research to know what it means. ''
The numbers are not the expiration date, but the date the candy is made. It also is not based on the calendar that every one is used to, but the Julian calendar. Here is what the code 14071 means.,
The 14 means it was made this year. Yea! This is a newer bag. The next number indicates what day of the year it was made based on 365 days. 071 means it was made on the 71st day of the year. While I knew that it was would mean sometime in mid March, I wanted an easier way to figure out dates without pulling out the calendar each time. I found a Julian calendar online and copied down these numbers.
January 1-31
February 32-59
March 60-90
April 91-120
May 121-151
June 152-181
July 182-212
August 213-243
September 244-273
October 274-304
November 305-334
December 335-365
The numbers for March are days 60-90, with 60 being March 1st and 90, March 31st. Day 071 turns out to be March 12. This bag of candy was made on March 12, 2014. Unopened bags of Wilton candy melts are freshest 18 months from the date they are made, which means this bag is good until September 2015.
I went through all of my bags and about half were still in the 18 month window. I put large stickers on the bag, so I could see at a glance the date I needed to use it by. A few are getting close to their date, so I marked them to make sure I used them first.
Opened bags of candy should be stored in a air tight container or sealed plastic bag.. Some of my bags were past the 18 month window and just folded over. The rest were in plastic bags. I will be throwing those away, and buying new. I had only a couple of unopened bags that are past 18 months. According to Wilton's website unopened bags past 18 months are still okay to eat, but may be harder to melt, and not their freshest. If you have older bags, it really will depend on what you are making and what you feel most comfortable with using. If it is for an important project or party, it will not taste it's best. so in that case I would throw it out.
I am so excited to learn how to date my candy melts. It will definitely make it easier to know what to use for future projects. I hope this will help others who use candy melts too.
Here are some fun products you may want to use with your Wilton candy melts. These items are definitely on my wish list to try. (affiliate links)
No kidding! A friend and I were just talking about this - mere days ago!! We couldn't find the expiration date anywhere and we did what Wilton probably wanted us to: we tossed them and bought new ones.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this great tip! I'd love it if you shared over at the Thank Goodness It's Thursday at Ruffles and Rain Boots.
I'm going to Pin your post and send it to my friend!!
Thank you so much Sarah.. I think you are probably right, since it is not clear they probably do want you to buy new bags. I will try to stop over to your party..
DeleteSeriously, thank you for figuring this out and for sharing it! I never really thought about this! Pinned and scheduled to share on FB in the morning! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Jamie.. I wish I figured this out sooner. :)
DeleteAlways wondered about this. Thanks for sharing. Now headed off to my pantry to check packages.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Thanks for sharing this bit of info!
ReplyDeleteStopping by from The Party Bunch link party. SO glad I came across this. I have a ton of candy melts in storage. I better go check them. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic! I bet a lot of other codes are the same and I never knew it. I laughed when you said they're still good to eat after 18 months though... I'd be doing that instead of throwing them away :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great tip! :D
ReplyDeleteI'm a little late to finding this out, but so glad that I have. I was going to use them in the next week and was curious if they were still good. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI'm a little late to the party but glad I found this. I was planning on using mine in a couple of weeks and looked at them last night and became curious if there were still good. No beuno....thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you. That is really something to watch. Do any of you have trouble with the consistency of this chocolate?? At first I thought maybe the chocolate was old or I over heated it but just brought new bags and heated 10 sec at a time and still?? Please help. Need to make my Xmas lollipops. Tks
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing
ReplyDeleteWow, it's been a while since you posted this, but I cannot tell just how happy I was to find it=) I have several bags and now know I can use them. Also that coconut oil can be used in place of paramount crystals or shortening. THANK YOU so much for sharing. Hugz:)
ReplyDelete