Some of the region’s top chefs competed today against amateur chilli jam-makers in a lunchtime contest at Jesmond Dene House. And you can replay the action as it happened in our live-blog.

Chillis, peppers, tomatoes, sugar, ginger... but what will be the ingredients of today's competition winner?

More than 25 competitors including award-winning north east chefs, suppliers and customers of the hotel entered the inaugural North East Chilli Jam Challenge. The idea for the challenge originated with Jesmond Dene House director Peter Candler, but word of the competition spread quickly among the region’s fine food community thanks to head chef Pierre Rigothier’s use of Twitter. All proceeds from today’s event went to St Oswald’s Hospice.

Today’s jam-makers included Candler, Rigothier and their colleague, sous chef Michael Penaluna; David Coulson and John Calton, finalists on BBC’s MasterChef; Dave Kennedy of the Black Door Group; Simon Walsh of the Barrasford Arms; Robbie Bell of Bistro 21, Durham; Andy Drape of Barn Asia, Newcastle; Simone and Ian Clarkin of delicatessen Mmm…; and Battlesteads Hotel in Wark.

Judges included Journal food writer Katharine Capocci, Jane Hall of Smart Cookie Media, Parichat Somsri-Kirby, head chef at Cafe 21 at Fenwick, Newcastle, a representative of St Oswald’s Hospice, and Ian Wylie, editor of JesmondLocal.

JesmondLocal‘s restaurant reporter, Sophie Bauckham, live-blogged the event. Click here to see what happened… and who won.