Cookbook Reviews
It's true, I don't invent all of the wonderful chocolate thingies that I bake for these parties. I use recipes published in magazines and cookbooks, just like other people. I've been asked to recommend a cookbook or two, so I'm devoting this section of the site to cookbook reviews. And here they are!
Books I Love:
Death By Chocolate, Marcel Desaulniers ISBN 0-8478-2557-4 [Buy from Powell's Books]
Death By Chocolate Cookies, Marcel Desaulniers ISBN 0-679-30873-3 [Buy from Powell's Books]
Death By Chocolate Cakes, Marcel Desaulniers ISBN 0-688-16297-5 [Buy from Powell's Books]
Celebrate With Chocolate, Marcel Desaulniers ISBN 0-688-16298-3 [Buy from Powell's Books]
I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas, Marcel Desaulniers ISBN 978-0-7645-9900-2 [Buy from Powell's Books]
These are my favorite chocolate cookbooks. The differences among them are mostly obvious from the titles. Death By Chocolate has a bit of everything -- cakes, cookies, candies, ice creams, mousses; complicated things, simple things; small amounts of chocolate, overwhelming amounts of chocolate. Cookies has bar cookies and small cakes, drop cookies, and a few candies -- all individual-portion things, except for a chapter at the end that's got a few oversized things in it. Cakes has some small cakes too, and the occasional bundt or sheet cake, but it's mostly layer cakes of varying degrees of complexity. Celebrate is mostly showy things, more complicated on average than the others. Chocolate Christmas makes a strong effort to feature less complicated recipes, that you can whip up during a busy holiday season.
The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Chocolate, Christine McFadden and Christine France ISBN 0-7651-9476-7 [Buy from Powell's Books]
Chocolate Ecstasy, Christine France ISBN 1-85967-204-3 [Buy from Powell's Books]
I put these two together because there's a lot of overlap between them -- the same recipes appear in both books, with minor or no differences. Not 100% overlap, but enough that I tend to use only one of the two for any particular party. These are some of my oldest cookbooks, along with the original Death By Chocolate. They're a good cross-section of recipes, mostly of simple to moderate complexity. Chocolate Ecstasy does not have any cookies in it. The Ultimate Encyclopedia appears to be out of print, but portions of it have been reissued under different names several times. (try The Chocolate Cookbook: Luxurious Treats for Total Indulgence, Heavenly Chocolate, or Chocolate Dreams.)
Chocolate Passion, Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty ISBN 0-471-29317-2 [Buy from Powell's Books]
This book is by two of the editors of Chocolatier magazine, and many (most? all?) of the recipes are reprints from the magazine. Sadly, they have dropped the magazine's ranking of recipe difficulty. Most of the recipes in the book are intermediate to advanced. The recipe instructions have a tendency to be extremely precise; they stretch the instructions for making chocolate hazelnut bark to 6 numbered steps taking up a full page. Some very nice recipes, though.
Bittersweet, Alice Medrich ISBN 1-57965-160-7 [Buy from Powell's Books]Part cookbook, part memoir; there's a story, or at least an intro, with every recipe in this book, plus a lot of anecdotes without recipes. This one is very precise about how much cocoa solids should be in the chocolate you use for the recipes, and how to alter them if you're using a darker or lighter chocolate. Another nice cross-section, ranging from basic brownies, cookies, and cakes to souffles and spectacular pastries. This book also has a chapter on savory uses of cocoa nibs and cocoa powder.
Good Housekeeping Cookery Club Chocolate, Joanna Farrow ISBN 0-09-178-995-8This is from Good Housekeeping in the UK, which is much fancier and more interesting than Good Housekeeping in the US. It's a relatively small book, but the recipes are distinctive. Nothing too complicated -- no recipe is more than a page long. The ingredient names haven't been translated from British to American, and there are a couple of ingredients (golden syrup, creme fraiche) that are relatively hard to find here.
Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts, Maida Heatter ISBN 0-394-50391-0 [Buy from Powell's Books]
This is another excellent cross-section, with also some unique recipes. All the major families are here: cakes, cookies, cheesecakes, mousses, puddings, pies and tarts, ice creams, pastries. It's got very detailed instructions, sometimes precise to the point of overcomplication. There's a wide range of sophistication and complication; due to the writing style, it's not always obvious whether a particular recipe is easy or hard. The results are excellent, though.
Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé, Dorie Greenspan ISBN 0-316-35741-3
Pierre Hermé is a very famous and decorated French pastry chef, and this is his second collaboration with cookbook-writer Dorie Greenspan (author of Baking with Julia). This book is full of sophisticated, intense desserts with fascinating contrasts in texture and flavor. The recipes are clearly and accurately written, with lots of photos. Not a book for beginners, but a good "next step" for sincere chocoholics.
Chocolate Epiphany, François Payard (w/Anne McBride) ISBN 978-0-307-39346-3
François Payard is a famous French pastry chef transplanted to New York, where he owns the Payard Patisserie & Bistro. This book is full of wonderful recipes that make creative and delicious use of wild flavor combinations, interspersed with moments of luscious chocolate purism. We started using this book for the 2009 party, and are looking forward to trying many more of the contents. The recipes in this book aren't simple, but are written so well we find them foolproof.
Books I Like:
1000 Chocolate Baking & Dessert Recipes, Parragon Publishing ISBN 1-40540-187-7
Cookshelf Chocolate, Parragon Publishing ISBN 0-75255-526-X1000
Chocolate Baking & Dessert Recipes is mis-named. There should be a comma in there between "Chocolate" and "Baking". Grrr. It's from a UK publisher, but available in a US edition that has far less of the problem with unknown ingredients and odd measurements than other cookbooks from the UK.
Cookshelf Chocolate seems to be an abridged version of the big book, limited to just some of the chocolate things. Cookshelf has a nice cross-section, with with an emphasis on hot & cold pudding recipes and the like, and fewer cakes than your basic chocolate cookbook.
La Maison Du Chocolat, Robert Linxe ISBN 0-8478-2343-1
I wanted to love this book. I really did. The recipes are mostly very complicated, and you have to really know what you're doing to follow them, because they leave out steps or are very unclear about what you're supposed to do. Sometimes there are ingredients listed that are never mentioned in the recipe instructions. I've gotten some very nice results out of it, but I can't recommend it to anyone with less dedication than I have.
The Little Black Book of Chocolate, Barbara Bloch Benjamin ISBN 0-88088-361-8
This is another small book, but quite comprehensive. It's a good cross-section of simple recipes, very high-quality. When I need a simple frosting, or a cake or cookie to turn into an ingredient in something else, I look here. This would be a good first book for an amateur chocoholic.
The Joy of Chocolate, Judith Olney ISBN 0-8120-5435-0
This book has a good cross-section and covers all the basics. It has a significant number of desserts that emphasize presentation -- a cake made to look like a cabbage, or a chocolate bag (made by painting a brown paper bag with melted chocolate, then removing the original bag once the chocolate has set) filled with fruit puree, cookies made to look like potatoes or oysters. In among those, there are some interesting things. Sadly, even with that level of attention to presentation, there are only a few photos in the book.
Books I Haven't Formed An Opinion Of Yet:
These are mostly relatively new to my collection, so I've either not used them yet or only tried a couple of recipes. A few have been around awhile but always get passed over in favor of other books.
The Golden Book of Chocolate, Carla Bardi, Claire Pietersen, et al. ISBN 0-7641-6157-1
(This looks to be a translation of an Italian chocolate cookbook, published by Barron's Educational Series.)
Chocolate Sensations, Trident Press International ISBN 1-582-79118-X
Chocolate & Confections, Peter P. Greweling ISBN 978-0-7645-8844-0
This is a textbook on candymaking from the Culinary Institute of America. How could I pass that up? We've been very glad to have it in our library (it cured our fudge problem, and taught us how to make the most velvety fondant!) but I don't feel like I can do it justice in a review until we've gotten familiar with the following:
Chocolates & Confections At Home with the CIA, Peter P. Greweling ISBN 978-0-470-18957-3
You'd think this would be just a simplified version of the CIA Chocolates & Confections textbook, wouldn't you? Well, a quick flip through the pages tells us that these books fill two completely different niches in teaching of the confectionery art. Where the textbook discusses theory at length, the "At Home" book outlines the physical process with comprehensive series of photos. I look forward to making the "At Home" book's acquaintance.
Spago Chocolate, Mary Bergin and Judy Gethers ISBN 0-679-44833-0
Books I'm Largely Unimpressed By:
Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook ISBN 0-9610218-0-2
I think this book was more interesting to me back when I was getting started -- when I didn't have so many other cross-section books, and didn't think of Ghirardelli as inferior quality. These days, I just never get excited over anything about this book, partly due to the lack of an index, partly due to the lack of pictures, partly due to the preponderance of recipes using milk chocolate or specific Ghirardelli products that I can't get from anyone else. About 1/3 of the book is savory foods.
Le Cordon Bleu Home Collection Chocolate, Periplus Editions ISBN 962-593-431-6
This book has only a small number of recipes, and they are the sorts of recipes that appear in any of these books that I describe as a good cross-section. They are rated for difficulty, which is nice.
All Things Chocolate, Armand Eisen ISBN 0-8362-3061-2
This is one of those 3-inch-square books they sell at the checkout counters of bookstores. It hasn't got many recipes, and they're all basic stuff, but good versions of those basic things.
Chocolate Days, Laurie Watts ISBN 0-7615-0116-9
This book, more than any of my others, feels like it's written for people who don't cook regularly. It's definitely geared toward treat-yourself rather than dessert-for-a-party. Most of the recipes are simple or very simple. Even so, there are some unique recipes in there.
Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate, Barbara Myers ISBN 0-14-046661-4
This is another cross-sectional book with no pictures. Most recipes are in the simple-to-medium difficulty range. Lots of basic recipes, with a few distinctive things. It's a workhorse of a chocolate cookbook.
The Essence of Chocolate, John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg ISBN 1-4013-0238-6
Scharffen Berger Chocolate is the only artisan brand of chocolate made in the USA, and their flagship store in Berkeley is famous as "the place to go when you've outgrown Ghirardelli." When I heard that they'd written a cookbook, I was excited. Alas, many of the recipes are either inaccurate or hard to follow, and it leaves me feeling like I've seen better versions of these desserts elsewhere.