Customer Reviews

Hot Chocolate: 50 Heavenly Cups of Comfort (50 Series)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
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Fantastic chocolate recipes! Some recipes are just right to drink in the morning instead of coffee. Others are richer and desserty.

The pictures are beautiful. The writing style is fun. This is a great gift book. Just be sure you get one for yourself too.

I loved the copy I bought so much that I am buying this book for everyone for Christmas to give with a coffee mug and a great quality chocolate bar. On the card I am going to say, something nutty like "for my sweet or hot friend" (as appropriate)

This book is fantastic. The writing is great and the photos make your mouth water. I am especially excited about the mixes. I have tried them and they are delicious. I plan to make them for Christmas gifts. Use the presentations in the book and you will have a delectable and unique gift. If you don't have time to do this then give the book - even better!

Bought this book for a gift for my mom. She loves chocolate number one, but I wanted to share with her the types of European chocolate drinks that we recently enjoyed in Europe. The recipies inside were exactly like the drinks we tried in France, Italy, and Spain. It's a cute, smart looking book as well.

Our family LOVES hot chocolate. My kids ask for a nice hot cup of it every day after school. At Christmas time, they ask for hot chocolate mixes from Santa. We are a bit obsessed. So imagine the joy I felt when I came across this book. I originally read Fred Thompson's book "Bourbon" (also reviewed) and found out about his book "Hot Chocolate" from the back cover of the "Bourbon" book. I really enjoyed the "Bourbon" book, so I thought I would give this one a try as well.

I absolutely LOVE this book. It is broken in to chapters titled "Classic Hot Chocolate"; "Hot Chocolate Mixes and Super Mixes"; "Hot Chocolate with a Twist" and "Hot Chocolate with Spirit". There is a recipe to delight every member of a family, young or old. The recipes start off with homemade marshmallows, and in our house, you do not drink the hot chocolatey stuff without them. The recipe is fairly simple to follow and there is nothing better than homemade marshmallows. The rest of the book follows with simple to fancy recipes or recipe mixes perfect for gift giving. Summer's Frozen Hot Chocolate, Jerry's Peanut Butter Dream, Ghirardelli "Square" Caramel Hot Chocolate, and Hot Chocolate Nog are just a few of the original treats featured in this book. Along with each recipe, is a short story about the recipe, an ingredient, or something that has to do with the recipe, which made for a very enjoyable read. There are also very nice photos of some of the recipes that really add some visual appeal to the book.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys hot chocolate, and wants something other than a boxed mix to enjoy. Package this book with one of the recipe mixes and some festive mugs and it would make a great gift--for any time of the year!

Chocolate lovers - if you ever crave chocolate dessert, but don't want to spend the day in the kitchen, this is it! I love this book.

As soon as it gets cold, I start craving Nun's Revenge. Cuddling a hot cup of creamy dark chocolate warms my soul.

Like another reviewer said - you can take a trip to all the chocolates of the world with flavors from Italy, France, and Mexico.

Hot Chocolate makes a great gift, with delicious pictures, and fun reading. I have given this to several people who have loved the recipes, and these are people who don't like to cook!

I bought this book because I'm about to open a Café and I wanted to try new
recipes and this book it was great! Great recipes, full of new ideas, simply delicious!!
I totally recomend it!!

One of my friends claims to make the best hot chocolate in the world. All I have to say is that they haven't tried the recipes in THIS book! "Hot Chocolate" by Fred Thompson has the most creative recipes I've seen yet. There is even a recipe for marshmallows if you want to make everything from scratch.

I tried three hot chocolate recipes and must say that I was the most intrigued with the "Vanilla Hot Chocolate Seduction." This recipe is for four but I reduced the ingredients to make it just for one. The main ingredients are milk, vanilla, white chocolate and Triple Sec. To take it up a notch I also added orange zest which I strained out after everything had heated up. It was perfectly delicious and very soothing. I will definitely make it again!

My second favorite recipe was the cinnamon hot chocolate which calls for one teaspoon cinnamon. May I recommend you try Saigon cinnamon when you make it? You will be hooked! The third recipe I tried is more of a mix and it contains crushed peppermint sticks. I found some candy canes and it worked great although my husband complained at all the noise I was making to crush them.

One of the things that might surprise you is that many of the recipes call for salt. I tried some with salt and some without. I don't think the salt is necessary. While most of the recipes are easy to make there are a few with ten or more ingredients which seemed a little over the top. One recipe calls for bittersweet, semisweet and milk chocolate plus cocoa powder. Some of the recipes call for more exotic ingredients like lemongrass and star anise.

While I used fat-free milk, many of the recipes call for soy milk, whole milk, half-and-half or heavy cream. One recipe is quite creative and calls for marscarpone cheese instead of whipped cream. Most of the recipes call for sugar but feel free to use sugar substitutes. Stevia worked great in all the recipes I tried. Also, most of the recipes are for 2-12 servings. So you may have to adapt the recipes depending on how many people you are having over for a drink.

Some things you might want on hand before the book arrives include creme de cacao, Godiva chocolate liqueur, Kahlua and brandy. But there are just a few adult beverages in this book. If you are making drinks for kids and adults at the same time, the alcohol can be added to each adult's cup at the end.

One thing you might want to do when you first make some of these recipes is to halve the amount of chocolate you add. Sometimes the recipe can turn out a bit thicker than you might prefer. So if you add less to start with you can figure out how much you really want to add. I found some of the drinks were thin and some thick depending on how much chocolate I added. So you can truly adapt these recipes to your taste. This book would be perfect as a gift in winter, perhaps with a few ingredients (like gourmet chocolates) and a cute mug.

~The Rebecca Review

I really don't have to say anymore than what the previous customers who rated this book have. Great presentation, great description and step by step walkthrough and of course the taste of Superb Chocolate. Need I comment further? One more thing... I am not the biggest hot chocolate fan, but I will recommend this book to everyone I know, including people like myself. Enjoy.

Oh My Gosh! This chocoholic bumped into this delicious little book the other day while scanning the 2007 IACP Cookbook finalists... went out and bought it that afternoon. Fred has captued in 90+ pages the best of the best when it comes to exciting, teasing and yummy hot chocolate recipes. I've already made 5 of the drinks along with the "chocolate gravy" & biscuits. Absolutely awesome! And on Saturday afternoon the frozen hot chocolate ingredients will come together... great way to enjoy with friends a warm Spring day.

Very nice book with lots of cute ideas. This will make a lovely present and would go good in a gift basket.