Cooking with Chocolate: Essential Recipes and Techniques Hardcover – October 18, 2011

Reading this book is better than reading most novels. Wow. Beautiful photos and that make me want to try every recipe. The instructions are clear and the ingredients are common. There are a few fun new tools to find, but that is part of expanding my knowledge and kitchen base...new tools like stainless steel rulers which hold up what I would describe as a long, thin chocolate ganache tart. Very clever and not hard to do. The recipes I've tried are exquisite and I can't want to cook the entire book...so much to learn and wonderful chocolaty foods to enjoy. This book is a masterpiece.

This book covers all the fundamental chocolate techniques in detail with a variety of basic recipes to demonstrate the point and to showcase some variations. It then dedicates over 1/2 of the book to creations that incorporate many of these fundamental techniques. For beginner and expert alike, there is great content in this book.I would also say that, unlike some other chocolate books, this book is well suited for the candy-hating chocoholic who loves the flavor and richness of chocolate but does not like particularly sweet food.

I gave this to a friend that is a fab cook and chocolatetiere. She was amazed at how nicely all the tips and recipes were presented. She has managed to use so many of the recipts even she was surprised. See, you can teach a "good cook" some new tricks. See how I cleaned that phrase up?

i love this book, it has a lot of step by step pictures, good recipes for those who love baking, include: cakes, tarts, brownie,candy, the recipes is from the best chefs, the pictures are so tempting, buy the book, it worth it.

I really enjoyed reading the individual blurbs from each chef, and the introduction to the book has more detail about the actual process of cooking with chocolate than I have found elsewhere. However, I wasn't blown away by the recipes; some are incredible, some are fairly poorly written (the ingredient list and/or instructions). In at least two instances that I have noticed, the ingredient list doesn't actually give an amount or weight (e.g. it just says, milk & chocolate), and the instructions do not further elucidate the proportions necessary to achieve the final product. In another case, one ingredient is called for within two different sections of the instructions, while another ingredient is left out of the process. It may just be a translation error, or a printing error, but still... There are also some recipes where detail is lacking: "heat for a while, then blah blah blah". The photography is gorgeous, and I want to eat everything in this cookbook, but it's a pretty pricey cookbook for so many errors, especially when pastry is a field where precise measurements matter.

This title beautifully covers the art of working with chocolate. From tempering to creating beautiful decorations, all of the examples and techniques are clearly and accurately demonstrated. I highly recommend this book if you want to improve or just begin to explore working with the chocolate medium.

If you have any questions about chocolate, this book is a must. Amazing illustrations, recipes and techniques.

One of those huge books that is too fine to bring into the kitchen and too heavy to read in bed. Lighten the load.