UPDATED: 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge Awards Show | #PodSaveChocolate
Episode 33 of #PodSaveChocolate is dedicated to presenting the winners of the 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge.
When and Where to Watch
This episode airs live starting at 1:00 PM PDT/MST (2:00 MDT, 3:00 CDT, 4:00 EDT) on Tuesday, April 9th, 2024. Updated on 4/10 to include galleries of the award graphics organized by category with the links to winners’ websites.
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Link to watch and comment on TheChocolateLife page on Facebook.
Episode 33 Overview
This episode of #PodSaveChocolate is dedicated to presenting the winners in the 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge.
As in the 2023 Awards presentation ...
TheChocolateWire
Watch the 2023 Challenge Awards Results Show!
... I will be joined by Dustin Cornett, the founder of the Challenge, and we hope to be joined by some of the winners to discuss their entries, talk about the Challenge experience, and take questions from the LIVE participants. And, this year Dustin and I will be joined by Leila Carvajal from Cocoa Supply, the sponsor of the new-this-year Innovation Awards.
Awards
Maker Website Links: [Bronze] 21 Degrees; [Silver] Makai; [Gold] Embers.
Maker Website Links: [Bronze] Encore; [Silver] Sweets Escalier/Japan; [Gold] Gansett.
Maker Website Links: [Bronze] mēllow/Denmark; [Silver] Thor’s; [Gold] Blue Spruce (Facebook).
Maker Website Links: [Bronze] Kesshō; [Silver] mēllow/Denmark; [Gold] Heritage.
OVERALL Winners (highest total score irrespective of category)
Maker Website Links: [Bronze] Gansett; [Silver] Heritage; [Gold] Embers.
INNOVATION Awards (in alphabetical order, there is no place order)
Maker Website Links: [Bronze] Awki; [Silver] Choco Forest/Japan; [Gold] Nagano/Japan.
The 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge Innovation Awards were sponsored by Cocoa Supply. Click on the photo for the US website. EU website. Australian website.
My Personal Judging Notes
This was my second year as judge and head judge. I hosted an episode of PodSaveChocolate where I included a discussion about how I was planning to approach judging this competition before I received the entries.
Clay Gordon
I have a lot of fun judging the Challenge for many reasons, one of which is that I get to set my own schedule. I select the order I am going to judge the entries, how many entries per day I need to judge to be done by the deadline, and at what time(s) of day I judge. This also means that if, for any reason, I feel like I can’t take another bite I have the leeway to adjust my schedule on the fly.
My primary approach is to organize the entries so I am not tasting too many of the same kinds of chocolate in the same “flight” – I want to avoid groupings of all-dark entries, and so on. I followed this approach except in the last flight (of seven entries) of which six bars were identical packaging, but from three different entrants all from the same country, which confused me. So I put them all in the final flight because I did not know how else to handle them.
Judging the Challenge is very different from every other competition I have judged because the most important aspect of judging is to provide feedback. The feedback is not an afterthought to be written down only if there is time. So, where I might be asked to judge – in silence when doing in-person judging where someone else is selecting what I am judging – a flight of nine similar chocolates in an hour, in another competition, for the CCC I routinely spent fifteen to twenty minutes on each bar, thinking about the packaging, the mold, and flavor and technical impressions of the bar, and any other thoughts that occurred to me.
I had the luxury of taking my time, so I took advantage of it.
I won’t spoil anything in advance of the awards presentation, but ...
My overall impression is that the competition was stronger this year compared with last year. I am impressed with the improvement in the technical and flavor quality of the work entered. Last year was great, too, but this year was even more fun for me to judge.
The Innovation Award (new this year) did end up changing the way I judged in subtle ways. There were some bars I could not award the highest scores in the Overall Taste Score category, but that I thought were worthy of recognition because the maker was doing something interesting. I singled out some bars that used novel fermentations, used common ingredients in new ways, used a fun mold, and/or had unusual flavor combinations. I set those bars aside in a separate pile after judging each, then revisited all the bars in that pile after the last entry had been judged.
I do have to say there were days (I tried to review eight or nine entries each day) when I had to stop before I reached my target bar goal. One particular bar was a lot spicier than I thought it would be and the heat persisted in a long, lingering finish. Now, I do like me my spicy but my palate was shot for two hours after.
My Photo Diary
Following are photos of 62 of the bars (I thought I took photos of all of the entries, but nope) entered into the Challenge. This is, not counting the ones I did not photograph, pretty much the order in which I judged the entries. Unfortunately, some of the bars arrived broken and I did break many other bars – but not all of them – for photography purposes,
Episode Hashtags and Related Accounts to Follow
#CraftChocolatChallenge
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate
#PodSaveChocolate #PodSaveChoc
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
Craft Chocolat Challenge Instagram
Cocoa Supply Instagram
Next Episodes
The topic and guest for the Tuesday, April 2nd episode of PodSaveChocolate were still TBD when this post was published.
There will be no episode of PodSaveChocolate on Friday, April 5th because I will be on the road – heading to Albuquerque for the Southwest Chocolate & Coffee Fest.
The Tuesday, April 9th episode of PodSaveChocolate will feature the Awards announcement for the 2024 Craft Chocolat Challenge!
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Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon