While TasteTV’s 2025 White Chocolate Awards competition this year was small, I appreciate the optimism of the competitors. With cacao becoming harder to source and therefore more expensive, cocoa butter — the only part of the cacao seed that goes into white chocolate — is even harder to find.
Most of it stays with the rest of the cacao mass when chocolate makers are making dark and milk chocolates. It’s kind of like the cocoa butter that is for sale is their leftovers and these days chocolate makers are tightening their belts so there’s less surplus to sell to others. I know some small chocolatiers and chocolate makers have stopped making white chocolate bars because it’s gotten so hard to source.
In the current situation it seems extravagant to make white chocolate anything — and maybe that’s why there weren’t many bars in the competition.
As with all the competitions, I’m only covering the entries I rated average to top tier. Sadly there were no SFBA entries this time for me to shine a spotlight on. As often happens, I didn’t get all of the entries but lucky for me the bars that I got were excellent. Nobody was wasting a precious resource.
Recommended
The bar/bark entries I got to judge this year were all top tier, and there were some bonbons this time that I rated excellent as well. I recommend all of these — if you can get your hands on them.
ChocoPunto by Mabel
Veteran competitor, ChocoPunto by Mabel, Dominican Republic, makes bars using local cacao. They have continued to improve over the years that I have been judging their bars. They submitted 3 bars this time: a plain white and 2 flavored bars, and I gave them all my highest rating.
Submitting a plain white chocolate bar to a competition speaks to the confidence ChocoPunto has in their cacao, and I don’t think it’s misplaced. Their plain 35% white chocolate bar smelled like cocoa butter — not candy or frosting — and had a medium snap and very smooth texture. It was a good tasting, not too sweet white chocolate with hints of caramel. Overall a high quality white chocolate bar.
In the competition, ChocoPunto By Mabel 35% White Chocolate won Bronze for Best Taste, Best Texture, and Best White Chocolate. It was rated 4.5 stars, the highest rating.
Pistachio is the trendy chocolate inclusion this year, thanks to the viral Dubai Bar, and ChocoPunto submitted a 35% White Chocolate with Pistachio bar to the comp. It’s not a Dubai Bar riff — there are no unusual ingredients — but it’s a nice nut bar that spotlights the pistachios.
The ingredients list was simple: Organic cocoa butter, powdered milk, organic cane sugar — the same ingredients as in the plain white bar — and pistachios.
The bar was visually attractive with lots of visible chunks and smaller pieces of yellow green pistachio. It had a strong nut smell and immediate pistachio flavor, which got it high marks from me because pistachio is a mild nut and I find most pistachio inclusions not pistachio-y enough. I think the bigger size of the pistachio pieces helped the flavor stand out.
It had the same smooth textured, not too sweet white chocolate as the plain bar — and although it wasn’t on the ingredients list — it tasted a little salty, which worked with the nuts. The quality white chocolate and distinct pistachio taste made it a winner in my ratings.
In the competition, ChocoPunto By Mabel 35% White Chocolate with Pistachio received Honorable Mentions for Best Ingredient Combinations and Best Taste. It was rated 4.5 stars, the highest rating.
My favorite of ChocoPunto’s 3 bars was their White Chocolate with Cacao Nibs bar. It was a great bar: Visually appealing with lots of dark nibs mixed into the white chocolate. The contrasting textures of smooth white chocolate with crunchy nibs made it fun. And the taste started with the not too sweet, almost caramel flavor of their white chocolate as it melted. Then it changed to a nutty cacao when I crunched on the nibs. Excellent execution of a tactile chocolate concept — I could tell that they didn’t skimp on the quality of the ingredients.
In the competition, ChocoPunto By Mabel 35% White Chocolate with Cacao Nibs won Gold for Best White Chocolate; Silver for Best Texture; and Bronze for Best Ingredient Combinations, Best Taste, and Most Unique. It was rated 4.5 stars, the highest rating.
ChocoPunto’s website is currently under construction and I am not aware of any US distributors of their bars.
Panache Chocolatier
Veteran competitor, Panache Chocolatier, Leawood, KS, can be counted on for beautiful interesting BIG bonbons that I usually love. This time they submitted 3 entries but I only received 2 ☹️ . They were both great and I gave them each the highest rating.
Of the 2 I received, Panache’s Ceylon Chai Truffle resonated the most with me. The ingredients list was mostly spices — Ceylon cinnamon, cardamom, black peppercorn, clove, nutmeg, ginger, caramel — plus coffee infused crushed almonds sprinkled over the top of the white chocolate bonbon.
Inside the thin white shell was a tan colored white ganache. I loved the spice blend — very nutmeg and cardamom forward with a little spiciness from the pepper and ginger. The smooth not too sweet ganache also featured good vanilla and caramel flavors in an excellent white chocolate.
In the competition, Panache Chocolatier’s Ceylon Chai Truffle won Bronze for Best Ingredient Combinations; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Taste, Most Unique, and Best White Chocolate. It was rated 4.0 stars.
The other Panache bonbon I received, the Dragonfruit Passion Rose Truffle, featured ruby chocolate ganache in a white chocolate shell. The white chocolate dome was a smooth round shape with tiny bits of rose petals and maybe dried dragonfruit scattered across the top. Inside the thin white shell was a pink ganache that smelled like passion fruit.
Passion fruit was the dominant flavor and had a slightly citrus tang. Dragonfruit is a very mild flavor and wasn’t distinct — it was probably there to tone down the passion fruit’s tartness. And the rose in the name came from rose petals so the piece wasn’t strongly rose tasting, which is not a favorite flavor of mine — it just ended a little floral.
In the competition, Panache Chocolatier’s Dragonfruit Passion Rose Truffle won Silver for Most Unique; Bronze for Best Ingredient Combinations; and received an Honorable Mention for Best Taste. It was rated 4.0 stars.
Panache Chocolatier’s website isn’t an online shop but they do have instructions for ordering. Or if you live in the vicinity, they have a brick and mortar store in Leawood.
Ticket Chocolate
Return competitor, Ticket Chocolate, Loomis, CA, submitted one entry but it was my favorite of the competition.
First of all, Ticket’s Key Lime Pie Chocolate Bark was pretty with yellow-green swirls in ivory colored squares of white chocolate. The edges were slightly irregular — you could really see the hand of the artist in it. And it smelled great — very lime forward with a distinct key lime aroma.
It had a hard snap for a white chocolate and a good key lime flavor — tangy, not bitter or sour — with little bursts of more intense key lime flavor from lime infused sugar crystals. The smooth texture of the creamy white chocolate contrasted with a small crunch from crumbled graham crackers and the sugar crystals.
Another high quality white chocolate submission — I loved it — if you like key lime pie you should totally seek this out.
In the competition, Ticket Chocolate’s Key Lime Pie Bark won Gold for Best Ingredient Combinations, Best Taste, Best Texture, and Best White Chocolate; and Silver for Most Unique. It was rated 4.5 stars, the highest rating.
You can buy Ticket’s barks and other chocolate online.
Worth a mention
There were a few entries this time that while I didn’t love them like the ones above, I thought had enough merit to mention — and seeing how they did in the competition, other judges thought highly of them and you might too.
Painted Turtle Chocolatier
New competitor, Painted Turtle Chocolatier, Minneapolis, MN, submitted 2 entries that I thought worthy of discussion — and their cute quotient is a big part of why.
Painted Turtle’s Strawberry Bonbon entry was 2 chocolates molded and painted to look like strawberries — one in white chocolate, one in milk.
The painting kinda amazed me — especially the white one. It looked like a piece of old fashioned hand painted and glazed white china with the variated green on the leaves and faint splashes of pink on the creamy white berry itself.
The darker milk chocolate piece was not as eye-catching — the darker canvas hid some of the detail but it was still pretty cute with its dark green leaves on top of the mottled pink and brown berry.
Cacaopod said it had a salt and pepper shaker set visual vibe, which reminded me of when we were first dating in college and as an interracial couple we joked with our friends that we were collecting salt and pepper shakers when we’d go to thrift stores and garage sales. It was all very funny to us — until people thought we were serious and started giving us salt and pepper shakers.
We do not collect salt and pepper shakers. Please don’t gift us any.
Like a salt and pepper shaker set, the pieces had visual similarities but contained something different from each other inside.
Inside the milk chocolate one was a pink speckled filling that smelled sweet and slightly strawberry. The thick shell had a sweet milk chocolate caramel taste with a little malty undertone. The ganache had a slightly tart strawberry flavor.
The white one had 2 layers inside the white chocolate shell —a layer of jam on top of a pink speckled ganache? It wasn’t the same as the milk chocolate filling — it was solid, not soft — more like cake frosting in texture. This piece was sweeter and didn’t have a strong strawberry flavor. It had some tartness but was mostly sweet.
In the competition, Painted Turtle Chocolatier’s Strawberry Bonbon won Bronze for Best Taste, Best Texture, and Most Unique; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Ingredient Combinations and Best White Chocolate. It was rated 4.5 stars, the highest rating.
Painted Turtle Chocolatier’s Brown Butter Pecan Bonbon looked like a little bun with a cross hatch design on top — but in milk chocolate and daubed with gold luster dust. Maybe not as adorable as the strawberries but cute on its own.
The thin milk chocolate shell contained a speckled tan colored soft ganache. It smelled like candy and had an old fashioned candy taste too. The taste improved as the ganache melted and I could taste toasted pecan notes. It was not as sweet as the strawberry ones and ended a little salty.
In the competition, Painted Turtle Chocolatier’s Brown Butter Pecan Bonbon won Bronze for Best White Chocolate; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Ingredient Combinations and Most Unique. It was rated 4.0 stars.
You can buy Painted Turtle chocolates on their website and at their store in Osseo, MN.
Delysia Chocolatier
Finally, experimental chocolatier and competition veteran, Delysia Chocolatier, Austin, TX, submitted a bonbon that I thought was interesting.
The name was quite the mouthful — Raspberry Lemon Basil Chocolate Truffle. Visually it was a typical Delysia truffle: thick chocolate shell shaped in their square mold with a custom decal decorating the top.
Inside the white chocolate shell was where it got interesting — it had a soft cream filling, not a ganache. I think this is the first Delysia truffle I’ve tried with a cream filling. The pink filling smelled like raspberries and tasted mildly raspberry and then citrusy — with some raspberry seeds adding a small crunch to the texture.
The basil wasn’t a savory basil — lemon basil is more about its lemon flavor — but the piece wasn’t a straight raspberry lemon flavor either. The basil toned down the tart raspberry and also gave it an herbal aftertaste.
The big reason I didn’t like this truffle as much as ones I rated highly is I don’t like a thick shell on bonbons unless it’s there for a reason — like the inside is liquid and will make a mess if the shell cracks in transit. The shell was a good white chocolate — not too sweet, had a good flavor — but there was too much in balance with the filling. To me, the chocolate shell should be in service to the inside, not dominate — the inside should be more memorable. And now with cocoa butter getting so scarce, it makes even more sense to beef up the ratio of inclusions to chocolate.
In the competition, Delysia Chocolatier’s Raspberry Lemon Basil Chocolate Truffles won Gold for Most Unique; and Silver for Best Ingredient Combinations, Best Taste, and Best White Chocolate. It was rated 4.5 stars, the highest rating.
Delysia chocolates are available online and at their shop in Austin.
More winners
As always my mileage varies from the final awards. View the complete list of winners in this year’s Best White Chocolate Awards on the International Chocolate Salon site.
