The Art of Chocolate: Techniques and Recipes for Simply Spectacular Desserts and Confections Paperback – September 1, 1998

I am a complete beginner learning how to make chocolate confections, and I started with a more "professional" book, and was kind of intimidated. This book presents the subject and techniques in such a down to earth matter, that I was able to get my courage (and motivation) back. However if you are serious about chocolate making, this book has to be supplemented by more in depth ones.

I purchased this for my daughter as a Christmas gift, she is very interested in learning about chocolate, and it has given her detailed, specific information to help her, and great creative ideas to spur her on. And we get to eat the results! The book I got was used and had been signed by the author, so I just added her name to the " To Harry " inscription, it brought a good laugh all around.

During a candy show in Atlantic City,NJ, I met the author of this book. Her demos at the show were included in her book, so that was very special.As a newly graduate of the baking and pastry program at Atlantic Cape Community College, I am very interested in temperoring and molding chocolate. My daughter will be getting married this year and I can't wait to make many of the cakes and cookies for all the celebrations this year.

To be fair, I have not attempted any recipes in this book, but after going through it, I am very disappointed by the lack of pictures. I like my cookbooks to have a picture of each recipe so I can see what I am making and to ensure that the results are as intended. This book has some pretty complex sounding recipes (such as making birds out of chocolate) with no pictures to give you an idea what your finished product is supposed to look like. In my opinion there are many other chocolate cookbooks out there with the same types of recipes that do give you pictures of most every recipe.

This is the only book I've read that absolutely takes the mystery out of tempering chocolate. My many questions about tempering were not answered by other books or research on the Internet. The author's description includes three methods and, most importantly, the rationale for using each one. She gives important information which is the culmination of years of experience. This book and The Chocolate Bible by Christian Teubner are the essentials for anyone interested in learning how to work with chocolate.

This book, The Art of Chocolate, is just what I was hoping for. The description on the cover is very accurate "techniques and recipes for spectacular desserts & confections." This book is in amazing shape. It looks new. I'm very happy and will definitely buy more from this seller.

Book was very helpful and easy to understand! I keep going back to it for technique help.

In my opinion I think it needs more pictures to give us a better idea on the technique...but the recipes are very explicit