In Which I Eat A Very Large Amount Of Chocolate 1


Some time ago, I was asked whether I’d be interested in judging a competition. As I haven’t actually received formal BJCP training yet, it wasn’t a beer competition. It was something of a departure from my regular activities as this was for the Barry Callebaut Intercollegiate Chocolate Competition. I’m sure that old Slugworth would have given his eye teeth for the opportunity, but I went in somewhat concerned that I was going to screw up somehow. The only thing I’ve ever judged is the Stella Artois pouring competition, and that was a great deal less work on my part. It involved a touchscreen and split second decisions and, having passed the qualifying rounds, the participants were really only required to work for about a minute.

The thing you have to understand about the Barry Callebaut Intercollegiate Chocolate Competition is that it is far more involved than that. This year the theme was The Circus. The entirety of the event was split into two days of work and many more weeks of planning on the parts of the competitors. It involved creating recipes and plate designs and sourcing ingredients and mis en place and not a small  amount of architecture.

Dag, yo. That's a whole bunch of Chocolate.

The first day of the contest was Saturday and that was given over entirely to creating circus themed sculptures out of chocolate. I know that some of you are thinking that this is not a productive use of chocolate, but I’m going to let the pictures stand on their own, to demonstrate the sort of level of skill that we’re talking about. These were on display in the hallway outside the kitchen in which our participants were toiling.