Vancouver award-winning Gelato Grand Master, James Coleridge, has just won the Canadian challenge of the Gelato Festival World Masters competition held March 1st at Cool King Headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario.
His winning gelato flavour ‘Texas Pecan with an Italian Soul’ impressed judges and beat 17 other competitors’ gelato flavours.
The Gelato Festival World Masters is the world’s most prestigious gelato championship, organized and promoted by Carpigiani and Sigep – Italian Exhibition Group.
The Toronto gelato challenge is one of four North American regional gelato challenges to be held in 2023 as part of the Gelato Festival World Masters.
Three winners from each of the regional challenges, including Coleridge, will advance to the North American semi-finals to be held in Los Angeles in September 2023.
His innovative gelato flavour was a blend of Texas Pecan nut paste, Italian mascarpone cheese, and dark Quebec maple syrup.
The other layers were candied pecan pieces, an Italian Amarena cherry sauce, Vancouver Island sea salt, all infused with a hickory and cherry apple smoke.
Coleridge’s Gelato World Challenge was literally a challenge from the start when the ingredients he packed did not make it on his flight to Toronto.
They arrived 9 hours later causing him to lose his first day of prep and access to the gelato lab.
Forced to do prep in his hotel room, he arrived at the competition one day behind with the organizers unable to find a time slot for starting his production.
So, he literally went old school and cooked the milk, cream, and dry ingredients on a stove with a thermometer he bought that morning.
The morning of the competition, the whole infusion process that should have been done overnight, he had to rethink and adapt his technique to ensure he captured the innovative layers of flavour.
His latest winning flavour ‘Texas Pecan with an Italian Soul’ will be available exclusively at Casereccio Foods in Kitsilano this month.
He will announce the limited release on his Instagram @gelatobyjames.yvr.
Coleridge will be proudly representing Canada with his winning gelato flavour as one of three Canadian Gelato Masters at the Los Angeles semi-finals September 2 and 3, 2023.
The Gelato Festival World Masters is holding a four-year series of competitions to find the world’s best gelato.
Over the 2022-2025 time period, a series of regional competitions will be held, with the final global competition to be held in 2025 in Italy.
For more about Gelato Maestro James Coleridge, visit his website at www.gelatobyjames.com.