How Raúl Bernal fused chocolate and cycling to become the Best Master Chocolatier in Spain

Few established and internationally recognized chocolatiers would be able to undergo a tough professional test like the Best Master Chocolatier in Spain 2023 competition and, in addition, come out victorious. But Raúl Bernal likes challenges. His participation was impeccable, with a very high level of perfection and creativity in all the tests, and with the originality of ingeniously linking his two great passions, chocolate and cycling.

In so good.. magazine 32, we review all the creations he presented in the competition. He himself explains what he wanted to convey in each one of them and the creation process! 

Photos: Ivan Raga

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Road & Devil

White chocolate, sesame and banana bar

The bar had to be the road. I visualized it that way. The first idea was to make a mold of a road, with perspective, but in the end I was more convinced to work with a classic tablet format and give it the appearance of a road. I resorted to sesame which, although it is not one of the flavors I like the most, was an ingredient that could give me that pavement appearance, and it seemed more real than working with raspberry and spraying it black. And to get the texture, we added the same chocolate from the chocolate bar in very fine powder before the chocolate in the mold crystallized, and then, with a hot offset spatula, we ended up getting the wanted effect.

Discover the recipe in so good.. magazine #32

Brake light

Molded bonbon

The molded bonbon represents the bike brake light, and it had to be red, logically. So I thought of the cherry, and that led me to the cheese. And the chocolate is a white chocolate with goat’s milk, which Tomás Rodríguez, who has a bean to bar company in Galicia, prepared for me. It is completed with pressed Marie cookie. In the end it is like a cheesecake. It is a bonbon that you taste, brake, enjoy, and taste again to verify that what you have tasted is real. Hence the brake light.

Discover the recipe in so good.. magazine #32

I love Jijona team

Praliné bonbon

The praliné bonbon has no history other than the fact that I really like turrón de Jijona. And the presentation represents the cycling jersey with the inscription, as if it were the advertising of a cycling team.

Bernin

Ganache bonbon

For the ganache bonbon, the idea came from an ad I saw on Instagram for a bike odometer. It’s one of those times when you say you’re going to buy something and you get an ad for it on Instagram, as if they had heard me. But the thing is that the odometer showed Bernal Street, which matches my last name, and that was even more surprising. So I decided to make that the shape of this bonbon.

Juanito Banana

Own creation bonbon

And the bonbon of my own creation was a last-minute resource. I had to give up a mold in the shape of a plate, which was very expensive. I took advantage of another mold I had for something else. I then made up a story that wasn’t true, which was that with the bike, my friend and I arrived in Binéfar and there we ate a banana to get energy. And suddenly Juan, from the company Borén, our supplier of nuts who is in that town, appeared and gave me some pecan nuts.  We finally ended up having a coffee, thus completing the flavors of this bonbon that we call Juanito Banana. The story is not true, but maybe someday it will be (laughs).

The recipe can be found here.

Gemeliers Energy X2

Energy bar Chocolate snack

With my partner with whom I ride my bike, we call each other gemeliers (twins) because we dress alike and have the same beard. And when we go out we always take some rice bars with peanut paste. Talking with Monzonis, he suggested that I confit the rice, something that had never occurred to me and that I had never done before. Then we made a rice horchata with a little lemon, and with the praliné I thought it was spectacular. It truly is as if you were eating rice pudding. 

Discover the recipe in so good.. magazine #32

Ce n’est pas de la crème solaire, c’est de la crème à manger

Spread

As it had to be presented in a jar-type container, in keeping with the cycling theme, it was logical to present it as the classic bike bottle. And as it was a cream that was going to be tasted with bread, I thought that there was no need to complicate it with strange flavors. So I focused on making the best chocolate and hazelnut cream I could make.

Read the full interview with Raúl Bernal in so good.. magazine 32