Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers

by Nick Malgieri

Nick Malgieri, who taught us everything we need to know about baking in How to Bake, takes on chocolate, the world's favorite food. With the authoritative accessibility he brings to his teaching, Nick bridges the gap between the professional baker and the home cook. He knows techniques and ingredients and he teaches them with hand-holding efficiency. In ten chapters, Nick offers a primer on basics and every kind of chocolate from coca to chips and white chocolate (and why it isn't really chocolate in the strictest sense) to big dark slabs of the world's favorite luxury food and the many, many ways to enjoy it. Information on storage, handling, and the fundamentals needed to create chocolate confections is clear and concise. Recipe sections include everything you need to know to turn the food of the gods into desserts for us cakes and cookies, creams and custards, ice creams, pies and pastries, sauces and beverages, truffles and pralines, dipped and molded chocolates, all adapted for the home cook. Illustrated with four-color photographs throughout, all 380 luscious recipes will send a shiver of delight down the spine of every chocolate lover. Chocolate is definitive without being intimidating; it is a true home companion for anyone who wants to cook with chocolate.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food

Hardcover

First published September 9, 1998

Reviews

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like chocolate and this book is long on the subject. Nick writes authoritatively and with deep experience. The whole book is great, although I found the latter sections to be info you don’t find in many baking books and thus most useful.

[Lesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hade good luck with Modern Baker.

[Cheryl Schibley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you need to know about chocolate and what to make with it. Beautiful book!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredible selection of chocolate delights.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huge book of chocolate recipes, with good color photos of many. I love it when authors can keep the recipe to one page rather than providing a lot of extraneous information, which is the case with most of these. Many are not that different than other chocolate recipes, but it's a nice compilation. I made one of the flourless chocolate cakes for Christmas dinner dessert and it was a hit.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This goes hand in hand with "how to bake" as my favorite baking books (and I have tons of baking books). Oh, how wonderful chocolate is! How drab and miserable our lives would be without a little chocolate!

[Cami · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has the best of everything I want in a cookbook...

Great photos and CHOCOLATE.
I like that there are simple, everyday desserts as well as great photos of amazing stuff to make. Chocolate plastic? Who knew?

[melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to this guy I made truffles yesterday. Espresso truffles. Thanks to this guy I cannot sleep.

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

All I can say is wow! I love this book!

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not enough pictures.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book if you want show stopping pieces and fancy crap.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

the best brownies ever--Abe's signature dish is from here