CHOCOLATE BLISS is a celebration of all things chocolate: types and flavors, health and beauty benefits, origins, baking secrets, ecological influences, and gifting delights. With must-have recipes like Fudgey Hearts of Darkness, antioxidant-rich offerings like Blueberry Cocoa Nib Crumble, and luxurious indulgences like Salty Chocolate Body Scrub, there’s no reason not to treat yourself–and your friends–to the chocolate life.
“Anyone who loves chocolate will swoon from Susie Norris’s ode to the world’s most seductive ingredient.” –David Lebovitz, author of The Great Book of Chocolate and The Perfect Scoop
From the Publisher
* Better living through chocolate: a stylish, feel-good gift book for any woman who needs more chocolate in her life. * Chocolate is the food most commonly craved by women. * World consumption rises 3 percent per year and chocolate production struggles to keep up within this multi-billion dollar industry. * Includes 25 to 30 recipes for must-have treats (Deepest Darkest Fudge Brownies) and luxurious indulgences (Salty Chocolate Body Scrub).
Susie Norris is a cookbook author, artisan chocolatier, pastry chef/instructor and educational fundraiser. She taught at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Los Angeles, and her chocolate business, HAPPY CHOCOLATES (www.happychocolates.com), was featured on Food Network. Her cookbook, CHOCOLATE BLISS, was released by Random House/Celestial Arts in November 2009 and HAND-CRAFTED CANDY BARS was released by Chronicle Books in March 2013.
Prior to her work in the food business, Susie was Vice President of Series Television at Disney and held similar positions at Nickelodeon, CBS, NBC and Turner Network Television. She has a B.A. degree in English Literature from Boston College and a Certificate in Professional Baking from Epicurean School of Culinary Arts and Barry Callebaut Chocolate Academy.
For more on HAND-CRAFTED CANDY BARS, visit www.handcraftedcandybars.com For more on CHOCOLATE BLISS, Visit www.chocolatebliss.biz
REVIEWS: From LA Weekly: What's great about this book is its approachability. Hand-Crafted Candy Bars is not another tome on the Art of the Chocolatier or the Art of the Confectioner. Because much as we love Ewald Notter's pastillage technique, most weekends, we'd rather just make chocolate taffy (p. 61), peanut butter-chocolate cups (p. 46) or dark-chocolate dipped almond coconut bars (p. 37), which sound infinitely better than a certain commercial candy with the same ingredients. Another bonus: here, the number of recipes is hardly overwhelming, so making "nut n' nougat" bars on a Saturday afternoon (better yet, on a "sick day") seems completely doable.
The chapter we keep flipping back to is "Candy Bar Basics" with gives you just that -- all the basics you need to make you own bars. These are the building blocks of the recipes in other sections of the book: soft nougat, marzipan, fondant, four versions of caramel (and really, when is one ever enough?), basic toffee, fudge, vanilla cookie dough that works as a good candy bar base, chocolate coatings of various kinds. Many of the candies, say Norris and Heeger, freeze well. Good news if you're having a dessert party, bad news if your afternoon willpower is no stronger than ours.
The authors' personal favorite candy in the book? We're pretty impressed they were able to come to an agreement. The candy is one they have dubbed "molten chocolate peanut bars," little milk chocolate-covered logs filled with pillowy vanilla bean nougat and a layer of crunchy peanut butter-caramel. "It has everything we love in a candy bar - chewiness, nuttiness, sweet-saltiness, and that irresistible chocolate-caramel combo," they say in the recipe Introduction. Next weekend.
In the meantime, we'll be whipping up a little chocolate nougat -- in less than half an hour. Let the candy bar experiments begin. http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2013/03/hand_crafted_candy_bars_book.php
From STARCHEFS.COM: Chocolate Bliss Sensuous Recipes, Spa Treatments, and Other Divine Indulgences Oct 2009 Ten Speed Press Pastry chef, instructor, TV producer, chocolatier, cookbook author and general guru of all things chocolate Susie Norris delivers a gem of a book dedicated to the culture and cuisine her favorite subject. Not only does Norris provide chocolate recipes to sate even the most demanding choco-philes, she offers an introduction to the world of chocolate that opens up the much-loved, if oft underestimated, ingredient to a wider appreciation. Norris wants her reader to get to know chocolate on a more intimate level, whether that reader is pastry chef, fellow chocolatier, or mere enthusiast; she offers instructions on setting up a "tasting flight" for chocolate after the fashion of wine and provides lists of online resources useful for purchasing and further education. In addition to a wealth of savory and sweet recipes featuring chocolate, Norris' book delves into the varieties, origins, and uses of chocolate, as well as its health benefits, gift-giving potential, and topical quotes from fellow chocolate lovers.
If you feel like exploring indulgence and flirting with danger and sin--without taking too many risks--chocolate is the thing for you. This book tells you how to get the most out of it. It's also beautifully produced and makes a great gift. This book made my Christmas--
It's wonderful to see chocolate treated as comprehensively as Susie Norris treats it here--as a time-honored, cross-cultural food staple that is also a special and complicated pleasure for us aficionados, and--surprise!--good for us in many ways. This is a beautiful book that offers devotees even more opportunities to work chocolate into their lives. Chocolate as beauty product? Who knew! Whether you're someone who indulges regularly or suffers from fear-of-chocolate and refrains, Chocolate Bliss will give you the information you need to feel good about your habit, or to cultivate it less guiltily!
This book advertises itself as a book of recipes, but it contains very few for its page count. I bought this book for the spa treatment section, only to discover only 4 recipes. I do plan on trying the recipes out, but I'm not sure I would have bought the book if I had known how little help it was going to be.
