Centho award proves it’s top of the chocs
Congratulations to Geert Decoster from Centho Chocolates in Duisburg, Flemish Brabant, for winning a Gold Award at the International Chocolate Awards. But why was this Flanders’ only success?
Other countries are catching up
You would imagine that these chocolate Olympics would be where Flanders’ finest chocolatiers receive their rightful acclaim. After all, as Flanders Investment & Trade proudly proclaims in its brochure Belgian chocolates and confectionery, “…chocolate is a true Belgian/Flemish icon the world over. Year upon year, over €1.2 billion worth of the world’s best chocolates made in Flanders is shipped to chocolate-loving palates across the globe.”
But how many Flemish chocolatiers – makers of the “world’s best chocolates” – made it to the final of the International Chocolate Awards? One. Flanders’ sole award winner at these prestigious games was Geert Decoster, master chocolatier at Centho Chocolates in Duisburg, a village on the outskirts of Tervuren.
Decoster is one of Flanders’ leading chocolatiers. He studied for six years at the renowned Elishout School in Brussels where he acquired his basic knowledge of chocolate. This was followed by a postgraduate course in Paris’ Ecole de Bellouet. He started Centho Chocolates in 2002, with the goal of hand-making top-quality chocolates based on the pure concept of origin chocolate. This is chocolate sourced from a single country; often in Fairtrade and environmentally sustainable plantations.
Chocolate trendsetter
After years of experimenting, Decoster has become known as a chocolate trendsetter. His Speculaas chocolate won a gold medal in the UK’s Great Taste Award and he has made a range of pralines for TV chef Jamie Oliver. His winning entry at the International Chocolate Awards was his Salin chocolate, which took first prize in the filled chocolates/caramel category. The judges said: “Salin is a praline that excels in its simplicity. It is extremely tasty and unique in flavour and texture. Salin is thinly coated and has a pure and full caramel flavour.”
It was eye-opening to go through this list and see how Salin could be improved
But why was Flanders so poorly represented in the final? Decoster is mystified, but suggests it could be because local chocolatiers haven’t evolved in line with the industry. “Chocolatiers in many countries without a great tradition of chocolate have now caught up with Belgian chocolatiers and are creating new and exciting flavour combinations. If you visit chocolate shops throughout Flanders you will find that more or less the same assortment is sold at each of them. And it’s an assortment that hasn’t changed much over the last 10 years.”
Decoster realised how high the bar had risen when he submitted two entries for the European round of the International Chocolate Awards. One of them was his three-layered Fragola chocolate – a ganache of single origin chocolate from Peru with kaffir lime, wild strawberries and yogurt marshmallow. Fragola won silver at last year’s Belgian Chocolate Awards, but didn’t get past the preliminary round for the international competition.
His other entry – the Salin caramel – was nominated for the grand final, but even then the judges presented Decoster with a list of suggestions for improvements. “It was eye-opening to go through this list and see how Salin could be improved,” he admits. “But I accepted the judges’ comments – they are experts after all – and I went back to my workshop to fine-tune Salin.”
And now for something completely different…
What Decoster was attempting to do with Salin was unique for a caramel praline. This was to make the inside caramel the same consistency as the outside layer of chocolate. Normally caramel is runny and the outside chocolate is harder. The key was to find the right temperature when cooking the caramel to obtain the perfect consistency. At the same time Decoster had to get the optimal balance between savoury and sweet, which he did with a careful addition of sea salt and the use of chocolate originating solely from Costa Rica. The result clearly wowed the jury.
Salin is a praline that excels in its simplicity. It is extremely tasty and unique in flavour and texture
Decoster is keen to keep on innovating and developing chocolates and is a great fan of food-pairing. “Food-pairing is a way of scientifically analysing flavours to combine foods that share major flavour components,” he explains. “It’s a really useful tool for chocolatiers to discover new ingredient combinations that we might not have considered.”
Consequently, in the Centho assortment you can find chocolates with mouth-watering combinations of fennel and blood oranges; tomato jam and basil; and pepper and mango.
Photos: Dieter De Beus
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