Featured chocolate maker, February 2025

Last April I went to Albuquerque, NM to speak at the Southwest Chocolate & Coffee Fest. Many months before the event, the name Steve Prickett came up in almost every conversation about the festival, even though Steve is not the festival organizer. By the time I arrived in Albuquerque I was curious to meet this ubiquitous fellow.

My first order of business was to visit the Eldora Chocolate booth at the festival where I knew I would find Steve. He is the Founder of Eldora, a micro-batch maker with a retail store and café in downtown Albuquerque. Despite being thronged by festival goers, Steve stepped aside to talk. His excitement and passion were palpable. I wasn’t expecting much, so I was pleasantly surprised when I fell in love with his chocolate. My many years of experience in the craft chocolate industry have taught me that while micro-batch makers have a lot of passion, not all of them are great chocolate makers. I may like them as people, but I don’t always like their chocolate. It’s tough to make consistently good chocolate with complex flavor and smooth, creamy texture when you’re working in small batches. Texture can be particularly challenging.

I’m not alone in my enjoyment of Eldora. You’ll see from the medals on the Ecuador Cumba and Maya Mountain Belize bars that the judges for the International Chocolate Awards agree. As a judge myself I appreciate how difficult it is to reach medal status. We taste many, many samples (I judged over 300 plain dark chocolate bars in last year’s America’s Round competition), but very few are what I would consider world-class. As you’ll see when we meet Steve, his energy and passion for great chocolate are contagious!

Member Event – Meet the Maker
In late February Steve joined us for a conversation and tasting of the bars members received in their boxes. We scheduled the event while the Eldora factory was open so Steve could give us a virtual tour of where the “Magic Happens” (the slogan printed on the back of all Eldora bars). Many members waited to taste their chocolate until the event, proving they have more self-control than I do! Members can find a recording of the virtual event in the member portal.

The Chocolate
This month’s member box includes two award-winning single origin bars, Maya Mountain Belize 70% and Ecuador Cumba 70%, plus some fun and flavorful inclusions. Eldora uses the fruity cacao from Zorzal in the Dominican Republic as a base for the inclusion bars we’re tasting this month. Kudos to Eldora for making the inclusion pieces small and distributing them evenly throughout the bars!

About the Chocolate

• Ecuador Cumba 70% – This bar won Bronze in the World competition of the 2024 International Chocolate Awards, which brings together winners of the regional rounds to compete in a world final. I taste notes of chocolate, molasses and blackberry with a coffee finish.
• Maya Mountain, Belize 70% – Maya Mountain Cacao is a stalwart in craft chocolate, an origin that you’ve probably tasted before. The cacao is centrally fermented in the Toldeo District of Belize, a region known for its flavorful organic cacao. I taste notes of tropical fruit with hints of caramel.
• Green Chile Biscochito 70% – Bringing together the light punch of New Mexico chile with the warm spices of the biscochito cookie, this bar is a sophisticated homage to New Mexico. The chocolate gets its flavor from the spices of the biscochito cookie – cinnamon, cardamom and anise – along with bits of dried New Mexico chile, which comes in both green (less ripe) and red (more ripe) varieties. As I was getting ready to write this missive, I came across a recipe for biscochito in the New York Times Magazine. Here is how the author described her encounter with New Mexico’s state cookie: “I finished my meal with a pinwheel-looking cornmeal cookie that felt rustic and ancient…It reminded me of a softer biscotti: substantive, heady, but also approachable in flavor.”
• Toffee & Almonds –Almonds, toffee and chocolate are a classic combination, one that can devolve into an overly-sweet dessert. That’s not the case with this dark-chocolate-forward bar. It maintains its sophistication, delivering a balanced flavor experience and letting the fruity notes of Zorzal cacao shine through tiny bits of toffee and almond.
• Raspberry – Raspberry and dark chocolate are a classic combination that never fail to disappoint. Once again, Eldora provides a balanced flavor experience with an evenly-distributed dusting of freeze dried raspberries that marry beautifully with Zorzal’s bright fruit notes.