Let your New Year’s resolution be “Eat more chocolate.” With Jacques Torres’ A Year in Chocolate as your guide, you won’t have any difficulty sticking with it from January right on through December.
From the elegant Poached Pears with Chocolate Fondue to serve on New Year’s Day and a festive Bûche de Noël filled with chocolate cream and ornamented with meringue mushrooms, to homemade Easter eggs and autumnal Pumpkin Seed Brittle, the world-renowned pastry chef and chocolatier presents us with a calendar’s worth of treats sure to make every celebration more luscious.
All the holiday classics are featured here: Valentine’s Day bonbons, a molded chocolate Easter Bunny, ice cream sundaes for the Fourth of July, and Chocolate Caramel Corn for Halloween. But for Torres’ chocolate-drenched imagination, tradition is also a springboard; among the book’s many fanciful creations are Chocolate-Covered Matzohs for the Passover seder and a Chocolate Tamale to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
Adapting all his recipes for the home cook, Torres showcases his favorite chocolate creations—from traditional French pastry to classic American treats. With 150 ecstasy-inducing photos of the finished dishes, A Year in Chocolate will be the chocolate cookbook of the season.
Classically trained in France, Jacques Torres was pastry chef at Le Cirque for 11 years and now serves as dean of pastry studies at the French Culinary Institute in New York. In 2000, Torres opened his own chocolate factory in Brooklyn, and in 2004 he opened Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven in lower Manhattan. He is the author of Dessert Circus and Dessert Circus at Home. Torres lives in New York City.
Steve Pool is a New York–based photographer and writer with a special interest in documenting food in its natural setting.
This review is from: Jacques Torres' A Year in Chocolate: 80 Recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions (Hardcover)
This book is a brilliant example of what a specialty cookbook should be. The text is written in a conversational tone, and yet delivers information that could take one years to learn in practice.
The recipes I've tried have been fantastic, the ones I haven't...well, it's only because there's only so much chocolate one can eat and still fit through the door. ;)
I borrowed this from the library, and within a day or two of reviewing and testing a couple of recipes, I knew that I would have to make space on my cookbook shelves to have this one as a permanent star in the dessert section.
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This review is from: Jacques Torres' A Year in Chocolate: 80 Recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions (Hardcover)
I have a daughter and a son, who are both professioal chefs. They both requested this book for their birthdays this year. BOTH said they can look up a recipe on the internet, but are never sure it's really going to be exactly what they need. With this book and Jacques Torres' chocolatier reputation, they both said they felt safe using his recipes the first time out.
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This review is from: Jacques Torres' A Year in Chocolate: 80 Recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions (Hardcover)
I love this book, and Jacques Torres's chocolate creations. He knows and feels chocolate like no one else. The recipes are sophisticated, with simple clear instructions, yet fairly forgiving if you happen to make a mistake.
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