Forget milk chocolate molded into childish candy bars. Today's chocolate candies use chocolates with high cocoa content and less sugar then previously available and are molded into highly decorated pieces of art. Once only accessible to pastry chefs and candy makers, home cooks can now purchase high-end domestic and imported chocolates in their local specialty stores. The recent availability of bittersweet chocolates coupled with our access to a global food market and unique ingredients has created an increased interest in artisanal chocolates. Drew Shotts has been at the forefront of this renaissance because of his daring use of unique flavor combinations not typically associated with chocolates, such as chili peppers, maple syrup, and spiced chai tea. Making Artisan Chocolates shows readers how to recreate Drew's unexpected flavors at home through the use of herbs, flowers, chilies, spices, vegetables, fruits, dairies and liquors.
Making Artisan Chocolates
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Book Description
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About the Author
Andrew Garrison Shotts, former pastry chef for Guittard Chocolate and owner of Garrison Confections, has broken new ground in the chocolate industry with the development of his artisan chocolate line. Shotts has accumulated a wealth of prestigious honors during his career. He was named one of Pastry Art & Design's "Ten Best Pastry Chefs in America" and was recognized as a "Top Ten Artisanal Chocolatier" by USA Today. His numerous television appearances include CBS's The Early Show, and Food Network's Food Nation and Follow That Food. Drew resides in Providence, RI.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
117 of 118 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, an inexpensive book on making chocolates the professional and modern way
December 23, 2006
By Eric J. Wu
Format:Paperback
Andrew Shotts is as good of an author as he is a pastry chef (he was named Pastry Arts and Design top10 some year or other). This is a great book, aimed at intermediate or higher pastry chefs. This book does require some specialized equipment to do the fancier techniques (dipping fork, molds, transfer sheets). But even without any specialized equipment, you can make any of the chocolate candies in the book.
Contents include the following topics: chocolate basics and flavor pairings, including pairings with traditional flavors and non-traditional spices. About ~35 chocolate recipes. Recipes include standard classics like classic dark, classic milk, hazelnut praline. Recipes also include classic flavors (but maybe not classic pairings) like peanut butter+jam, and banana caramel. Finally there are non-traditional spice pairings like habanero+peanut butter, raspberry-wasabi, and mango-mint-coriander.
Techniques are where I think the book really shines. The book has excellent pictures and descriptions of making truffles, making molded chocolates, and making hand-dipped chocolates. Shotts shows the technique of airbrushing as well as how to use transfer sheets and luster or razzle dust. He does a good job of scaling down the equipment for the non professional. For instance when showing hand-dipped chocolates, he uses a baking pan + saran wrap + knife instead of sheet + frame + cutting guitar. After reading this book, you can go into any chocolate shop and say "I know how they did that technique". Surprisingly, Shotts never mentions tempering machines.
Finally, there is a book that shows all the techniques that professionals use. I don't have to pull out my issue of "Pastry Arts and Design" from 3 years ago or wait for a particular Food network espisode to come on. I have this book now. I love the range of recipes - not too classic, but not too experimental either. For those interested, there is a nice table of taste pairings for nontraditional spice flavors. The last wonderful thing is the price: usually you have to pay professional prices ($100-$250) for books that show professional techniques and recipes. Not so here.
Compared to others: "Fine Chocolates" by Wybauw is a great book with great tips on tempering how to correct molding mistakes. It's a lot more $$ (~$65 on Amazon, used to have to buy it elsewhere for $100) and is aimed at the more advanced chocolatier. This book is better than either of the Ecole Lenotre books.
Contents include the following topics: chocolate basics and flavor pairings, including pairings with traditional flavors and non-traditional spices. About ~35 chocolate recipes. Recipes include standard classics like classic dark, classic milk, hazelnut praline. Recipes also include classic flavors (but maybe not classic pairings) like peanut butter+jam, and banana caramel. Finally there are non-traditional spice pairings like habanero+peanut butter, raspberry-wasabi, and mango-mint-coriander.
Techniques are where I think the book really shines. The book has excellent pictures and descriptions of making truffles, making molded chocolates, and making hand-dipped chocolates. Shotts shows the technique of airbrushing as well as how to use transfer sheets and luster or razzle dust. He does a good job of scaling down the equipment for the non professional. For instance when showing hand-dipped chocolates, he uses a baking pan + saran wrap + knife instead of sheet + frame + cutting guitar. After reading this book, you can go into any chocolate shop and say "I know how they did that technique". Surprisingly, Shotts never mentions tempering machines.
Finally, there is a book that shows all the techniques that professionals use. I don't have to pull out my issue of "Pastry Arts and Design" from 3 years ago or wait for a particular Food network espisode to come on. I have this book now. I love the range of recipes - not too classic, but not too experimental either. For those interested, there is a nice table of taste pairings for nontraditional spice flavors. The last wonderful thing is the price: usually you have to pay professional prices ($100-$250) for books that show professional techniques and recipes. Not so here.
Compared to others: "Fine Chocolates" by Wybauw is a great book with great tips on tempering how to correct molding mistakes. It's a lot more $$ (~$65 on Amazon, used to have to buy it elsewhere for $100) and is aimed at the more advanced chocolatier. This book is better than either of the Ecole Lenotre books.
48 of 50 people found the following review helpful
By Robin
Format:Paperback
If you have ever worked through a long difficult candy receipe only to have it inexplicably fail--this is a good book for you.
The great strength of Making Artisan Chocolates is in the specificity of the directions. Making candy is unlike most kinds of cooking in that there is almost no room for error. Many candy receipes fail because they give general instructions with the idea that the cook knows how the candy is supposed to look, or feel at a given stage.
Instead of trusting that his reader is experienced, Shotts gives specific instructions, right down to which brand of chocolate will temper at which temperature. He charts guidelines for compatible ingredients and kinds of chocolate.
Thanks to Andrew Shotts I made my first successful chocolates last weekend. They were the best my family had ever tasted, and they looked gorgeous!
The great strength of Making Artisan Chocolates is in the specificity of the directions. Making candy is unlike most kinds of cooking in that there is almost no room for error. Many candy receipes fail because they give general instructions with the idea that the cook knows how the candy is supposed to look, or feel at a given stage.
Instead of trusting that his reader is experienced, Shotts gives specific instructions, right down to which brand of chocolate will temper at which temperature. He charts guidelines for compatible ingredients and kinds of chocolate.
Thanks to Andrew Shotts I made my first successful chocolates last weekend. They were the best my family had ever tasted, and they looked gorgeous!
52 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a good book with good recipes and tons of extremely specific information regarding technique and materials, though it's a little light on theory. My one complaint is that it's frequently very difficult to figure out what exactly is being pictured in the color plates as there are very few captions or labels on them.
And one quick tip: you should probably allocate at least $200 for practice ingredients when trying out some of the more colorful recipes for the first time. 90% of them will probably end up in the disposal.
A second quick tip for those of you who will be pulling out your hair trying to find the "G Pectin" some of the recipes call for; you can buy it here: [...] or rather you could if Amazon would actually let me include a URL to a site they don't own in a review.
Chef
Rubber
Dot
Com
And one quick tip: you should probably allocate at least $200 for practice ingredients when trying out some of the more colorful recipes for the first time. 90% of them will probably end up in the disposal.
A second quick tip for those of you who will be pulling out your hair trying to find the "G Pectin" some of the recipes call for; you can buy it here: [...] or rather you could if Amazon would actually let me include a URL to a site they don't own in a review.
Chef
Rubber
Dot
Com
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent book
Solid techniques. Depth of knowledge. Even some good beginning pairings of less traditional ingredients. A good book to study and develop good knowledge of the subject.
Published 13 days ago by Pen Name
5.0 out of 5 stars
Practical as well as tempting
I loved everything about this book. The instructions were easy to follow, the tone not high-sounding like some others on the subject, and the photographs tempting. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Helen Wilkie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chocolate <3
Im a chocolate fan and i wanted to get a book about how to make chocolate. I found what i was looking for, by buying this the making Artisan Chocolate. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jportuho
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very good chocolate book
I think that some books about making chocolate can be very intimating and complicated. Although this book goes over pretty much all the same things those books do, it makes it in... Read more
Published 5 months ago by SonoT_T
5.0 out of 5 stars
This aint your Great Aunt's Chocolate-making book!
This beautifully designed book has been very helpful in getting me started in my passion for artisan chocolate making. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Joshman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Milkhouse Chocolates
This book was very insightful and easy to understand. I appreciated the fact he went into detail about tempering chocolate, what is should look like and how it should NOT look... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Milkhouse Chocolates
5.0 out of 5 stars
very Good book
This book is really good for staters.... It tells a lot and easy methods how to make artsin chocolate in your home kitchn...and have many interesting flavours also...worth a buy!!!
Published 12 months ago by Gitika
5.0 out of 5 stars
chocolate making
Excellent book! Many details and tips to give you success with candy making at home giving you professional results. Read more
Published 18 months ago by connie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love it.
This book is fantastic for people just starting out but really want to be creative. It gives you flavor combinations,proper tempering of your chocolate, fillings step by step. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Robbin E. Russell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making Artisan Chocolates
Overall I like the book. Great recipes that didn't have to be modified to work. Very good descripitve pictures. A good book for both home cooks and pros.
Published 22 months ago by Edward D. Engoron
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