The Art of Chocolate: Techniques and Recipes for Simply Spectacular Desserts and Confections

by Elaine Gonzalez, Frankie Frankeny (Photographer)

This is not just a book of masterful recipes, tips, techniques, and meticulously detailed, easy-to-follow instructions. It is an extravagant paean to decadent desserts. Filled with luscious creations and lavish artistry-Chocolate Swan Truffles, Enchanted Forest Torte-this definitive guide to working with chocolate is unusual because it is written with beginners in mind. A cooking teacher with decades of experience, Elaine Gonzalez has devised innovative techniques to put the art of working with chocolate within everyone's reach. After mastering a few basics, any cook can create shimmering cakes, seductive truffles, and amazing chocolate sculptures. With The Art of Chocolate , even novices will soon roll, curl, twist, coax, and nudge chocolate to dizzying heights of fantasy.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1998

Reviews

[Kylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredibly helpful in its description of chocolate techniques. I wish it had more pictures

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gorgeous photos -- but not enough of them! Gonzalez gives good chocolatemaking advice and instruction, but a good 80% of her intricate-sounding chocolate sculpture "recipes" have no photo!! Someone at the publishing house shafted her. Most of this book is dedicated to molding chocolate and other decorative applications, but she throws in a few ganache recipes and other goodies as well.

This isn't really criticism, but I found it interesting that she doesn't mention the tabliering method in her section on tempering methods, but she does describe a method in which you just wait for the melted chocolate to cool down, rather than by seeding it (with unmelted chunks in the same bowl or added to the bowl) or tabling it. This sounds like it would take a really long time, and how (extensively) would the V-crystals form? Odd.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was not a lot of actual recipes in this book, it was more of the history and techniques of many tricks one can do with chocolate, so really it holds true to its title, "The Art of Chocolate", not necessarily recipes and goods, but what it is, the story and all the fun and tedious stuff that can be done with it.

This book is very useful for those aspiring to use chocolate in their careers, bakers and pastry chefs will love this book and I plan to own it myself one day.

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent introduction to the fine art of chocolate patisserie. It will lead the motivated reader to produce elegant presentations, table centerpieces, etc. It will be a great advantage if the reader is already an accomplished home baker.

[Karl Bahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book has excellent cake and other chocolate recipes. My favorite (and my kids) is the chocolate sauce recipe that I only modified a little bit.