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Product Description
From Amazon
As the American palate has changed, and we've learned to appreciate better quality chocolate, more and more of it is has become available to us. These premium chocolates come labeled with their percentage of cocoa solids. This delectable book is made practically foolproof thanks to the "chocolate notes" that follow any recipe where the percentage would affect the outcome. In them, Medrich provides equivalencies which allow you to use your favorite chocolate, and tweak the recipe to make it work. She's brutally honest, too, so when she says you can't mess up the rich and magnificent Queen of Sheba cake, or the Cold Creamy Truffles that started her love affair with chocolate, believe her. And when she warns that there are possible pitfalls for novices when attempting Extra Bittersweet Ganache Truffles, read carefully. The vast majority of her recipes, mostly sweet, some savory, are quite simple; her instructions are painstaking and reassuring; and the tales with which she introduces each chapter are enchanting. So dive into Warm Bittersweet Mousse, White Chocolate Ice Cream, Raspberry-Laced Chocolate Cake, or Chocolate-Flecked Cocoa Soufflés, because doing the dirty work has never been so delicious! --Leora Y. Bloom
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
For chocolate lovers, simply the best cookbook in years.,
By Josh M "joshocom" (Albany, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate (Hardcover)
I've made many of Alice Medrich's recipes from her previous books, and none of them has ever disappointed. But this book is a standout. It is not at all just a collection of recipes; it actually has the ability to change the way cooks look at and use chocolate.The theme of the book is that, over the past decades, most American cookbooks dealing with chocolate have been written assuming that the home cook is using typical supermarket chocolate, which may be servicable, but which is undistinguished. In the past few years, though, superior chocolates have become very widely available, chocolates with complexity and sophistication. Past recipes, with their heavy reliance on added sugar, fats, and flavorings, may work for less remarkable chocolates. But these recipes may overwhem and mask the unique characteristics of a finer chocolate. Assuming the home cook is using such a fine chocolate, Ms. Medrich analyzes and reconstructs many traditional recipes, and creates new ones as well, with an eye towards showcasing fine chocolate's personality rather than muting it. The recipes are incredible just to read (the half-dozen I've made myself so far have been easy to construct and superb to eat). Ms. Medrich's attention to detail is, as always, excellent; most of the recipes even includes notes describing how to adjust for chocolates with varying percentages of chocolate liquor. (If you're baking with a 60% chocolate bar, for instance, you'd use different quantities of added sugar and fat than you'd use if baking with a 72% chocolate.) Medrich also offers detailed explanations of the origins and philosophy behind certain dishes (mousse, for instance, or truffles). She devotes a large section of the book to the use of, and recipes for, roasted cocoa nibs. I've never before seen a book treat them as a serious ingredient in their own right. There is also a wonderfully broad selection of recipes that utilize chocolate in savory dishes and entrees...miles beyond Chicken Mole. Aesthetically, Bittersweet is elegantly designed and contains a decent number of color photographs (I crave more, though). For chocoholics, this book really is an eye-opener. Unreseveredly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
chocolate delights,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate (Hardcover)
On the whole, this is a lovely, reliable book with many truly excellent recipes for chocolate and its associates. I have found the 'lightened' desserts (especially chocolate pound cake and 'deception' which i prefer with milk instead of water) and cacao nib recipes (especially ice cream, nibby pecan cookies and cocoa bean cream) to be particularly good. The light recipes do not taste like they are light, which is very unusual and impressive. My only significant disappointments so far have been the various mousses. Also, the author and I just seem to have different preferences when it comes to some things-- e.g. she seems to favor drier, eggier sponge and genoise type cakes which I don't care for (but this is a matter of taste). There are enough photographs to be useful and wet the appetite, though the photo-greedy among us will always want more, especially in comparison with her earlier, glossier books. This book is billed as a memoir in addition to cookbook, but i find it to be lacking on this score. The anecdotes are relatively truncated and scattered, not well suited to sustained armchair reading. Also, I often find the tone irritating-- a combination of patronizing and self-congratulatory embedded in faux modesty. However, there is a lot of very useful information in this book, gleaned from a lifetime of practice and testing. Some of it is embedded in recipe notes, however (e.g. cold eggs can make a (not creamed) cake more tender). The organization of the book is not ideal either for learning or finding recipes, but there is a good index. I find I use the book most for its generally reliable and frequently exceptional recipes, and appreciate the tips and skills I acquire in the process of baking from it.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pick and Choose,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate (Hardcover)
This book didn't really speak to me. I was disappointed with the amount of photos and boring commentary in much of the text. The chapter on the social influence of chocolate was a total snooze for me, but other readers may like it.Many of the chapter catagories were bland with mediocre recipes. As far as the cocoa nibs...I say, who cares.Out of the 90 or so recipes, I saw only 19 that looked interesting.On a brighter note, some of the aforementioned recipes were really astounding though. I have been looking for a milk chocolate recipe for ice-cream forever and this book delivers.The information on truffles has never been covered before with such depth and was greatly appreciated. If you want to have more technical knowledge on the workings of chocolate, then this book might be useful to own-otherwise, I suggest borrowing it from the library.
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