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Overview
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 mortals: 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.
Synopsis
As the weather gets cooler, dessert lovers' thoughts turn from fresh berry tarts and light fruit confections back to the richer, more indulgent sweets of fall and winter, and especially to chocolate. Now, just in time to feed our deepest chocolate fantasies, comes Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers, a spectacular new book by master baker Nick Malgieri. Contributing editor Judith Choate spoke to Malgieri recently about the book and about his favorite chocolate recipes.
Publishers Weekly
Malgieri's paean to the cocoa bean collects just about every classic chocolate dessert. A thorough introduction to chocolate offers not just the history of the magic bean, but definitions of the various types and explanations of their uses, tips on storage and equipment and clear instructions for melting and tempering. As in his earlier How to Bake (1995), Malgieri, who is chairman of the baking department at Peter Kump's Cooking School, takes a gentle, educational tone in both homegrown recipes (Easy Fudgy Loaf Cake and Chocolate and Vanilla Pinwheels) and more sophisticated ones (Chocolate Paris-Brest, Chocolate Orange Trifle, and Chocolate Souffle Roll with Striped Chocolate Filling). Malgieri doesn't experiment with a lot of exotic ingredients (an exception is Warm Chocolate-Chile Cakes with Caramelized Bananas). When he does wax inventive, it's with regard to presentation: Individual Chocolate Cheese Tartlets have white filling in chocolate crusts, and each is dotted with chocolate batter in the center, while White Chocolate Strawberry Tart is topped with whole strawberries dipped in white chocolate. The pieces de resistance here are the challenging projects that close the book. These include a Chocolate Basket made by weaving strips of Chocolate Plastic; a Chocolate Flowers Wreath Cake topped with hand-fashioned flowers; and a cunning Chocolate Victorian Cottage Cookie Box complete with white chocolate cornices. Photos. (Oct.)