Explore The Careless Collection with MasterChef finalist David Crichton

By Faith Richardson

Originally from Shiremoor, David Crichton hadn’t always dreamt of being a chocolatier; instead, he left when he was 21 to follow his passion of working in the aviation industry. However after 17 years working as a pilot with Thomas Cook, in 2018 he took the plunge and applied to MasterChef to try out his love of food and cooking in a competitive setting. He made it all the way to the final, but it was during one of his most successful rounds that he struck gold with his chocolate. When tasked with creating a dish for his idol, David chose George Michael and created the “Careless Wispa” – a clever play on words and the beginning of his successes with chocolate.

It started off as a hobby, but when the pandemic hit and the aviation industry was all but gone for the foreseeable future, David decided this was the perfect time to try his hand at making this a viable career. His flavours are what sets him apart from other competitors; he recently won two star awards for his Classic Dark bar and Pistachio Cremino.

“My palate is probably my best attribute, as I have a poor sense of smell. So everything needs to be bold and textures are very important too. Put this all together and you should have a great product.”  His exciting and unusual flavours were one of his biggest assets during his time on MasterChef, so it was only natural that these carried on into his chocolate bars, too.

He makes all his bars himself, with a careful process that involves creating the shell (the top and sides) first, then filling it with his unique flavours, before layering more chocolate to create the bottom. Once that’s done, the bars should easily come out of the moulds, although it’s a tense moment – if anything goes wrong, he has nothing to sell. Doing it all by hand adds an extra personal touch to the bars and sets them apart from factory-made commercial products. Currently, The Careless Collection bars are only sold on his website, but David is interested in supplying to bigger department stores such as Fenwick to help grow his customer base and introduce his product to a larger market. However, maintaining his hands-on approach and ensuring quality control of his products is something he cares a lot about – avoiding mass production is key.