I was very disappointed when I pushed a sweater aside to discover chocolate clumped on my carpet. For one thing, my daughter should have told me that she dropped chocolate from her ice cream instead of playing with a sweater, tossing the sweater on the stain, and wandering off! (I suspect that was the sequence, because the chocolate was not on the sweater at all.) For another thing, why was she in my nice music room with a chocolate-coated ice cream bar in the first place?!
Fortunately, having handled similar situations— usually because of Small Sophie— I knew what to do:
First, scrape off the dried bits, or otherwise dislodge whatever can be taken out. I used my fingernails and quickly finished this step.
Second, try to remove any visible color at the surface. I drip some warm water on the spot and dab repeatedly with a damp paper towel. I dab rather than scrub so as not to just spread the chocolate deeper.
Third, after I find that my paper towel is not picking up much color through dabbing, I lightly scrub. This probably does spread chocolate further through the carpet to some extent.
Fourth, I rub in some stain remover. I spray it on the surface of the carpet and then rub it into the carpet. Lately, I have been using Shout because it is what Costco carries; I do not feel it is necessarily better than other stain remover I have used.
Fifth and last, after letting the cleaning solution sit for however long the bottle says it should, I steam clean the carpet with a vinegar/dish detergent/water combination that I eyeball the measurements of.
I was unable to completely remove the chocolate in one go, but, from experience, I know that it should be almost completely gone after a second ago, given the current state. Specifically, I will have to let stain removing treatment soak in, scrub, and steam clean again.
