Unabashed chocaholics rejoice, the 8th Annual Santa Cruz Chocolate Festival is returning Sunday, January 18 to the Cocoanut Grove.
Featuring more than 30 different chocolate purveyors, the Chocolate Festival is a benefit for UC Santa Cruz re-entry students sponsored by the UCSC Women’s Club.
Highlights of the family-friendly event include chocolate and wine tasting, a silent auction, demonstrations, cupcake decorating, face painting, gift items for sale, live music by Jazz by Five and new this year, a “Blind Tasting” competition that will culminate in a winner selected “Best in Show.”
Also new to this year’s festival is Chocolate Alchemy 101, a workshop that explores chocolate, beginning with its ethnobotanic roots and journeying into the neurophysiology of the sensory experience and beyond. Participants will work with whole, minimally processed forms of cocoa to create the perfect drinking chocolate as well as a personalized chocolate hazelnut spread. Each person will take home their own jar of “cocoa-tella” that they have flavored with exotic spices and a list of recipes to reproduce all the wonderful chocolate creations from the workshop.
Conducted by Brian Wallace of Endorphin Chocolat, the workshop will take place immediately before the opening of the festival. Participants must purchase workshop tickets in advance to attend. Space is limited.
The Festival will also crown the Santa Cruz Chocoholic of the Year. Nominations are open from January 2-9. Five nominees will be selected and the one with the most votes will be crowned at the festival and receive a basket of delectable chocolate treats. Do you know someone who is a chocoholic? Perhaps they eat chocolate for breakfast, or have a secret chocolate stash kept under lock and key? Nominate them, they’ll forever thank you.
Proceeds of the 8th Annual Santa Cruz Chocolate Festival support one of the primary goals of the UCSC Women’s Club: providing UCSC re-entry students with educational opportunities through scholarships and academic support. The Club has awarded 344 scholarships totaling $249,242 over the past thirty-seven years for research activities, tuition and childcare.
Festival tickets are available online and the day of event while supplies last.
Santa Cruz Chocolate Festival, 1 – 4 pm. January 18, 2015, Cocoanut Grove, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. http://santacruzchocolatefestival.org/. One taste/$5. Six tastes/$15. Cupcake Decorating $4. Chocolate Festival Apron $10. Chocolate Workshop, 11 am – 1 pm, $35.
