Amazon.com: Making Artisan Chocolates: Andrew Garrison Shotts: Books

Product Description

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.

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.

Product Details

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Quarry Books (January 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1592533108
ISBN-13: 978-1592533107
Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.1 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,992 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
percent white chocolate, percent milk chocolate, ganache sit, ganache from the pan, ganache from the freezer, percent bittersweet chocolate, large sandwich bag, vanilla ganache, trim all four edges, peanut butter ganache, roll the ganache, coffee paste, truffle ganache, decorate the chocolates, nonserrated knife, artisan chocolates, foot chocolate, molded shells, small offset spatula, luster dust, molded chocolates, tempered chocolate, hazelnut praline, decorate chocolates, cracker layer

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Grand Marnier, Sel de Guerande

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This book cites 1 book:

Rhode Island (The Bilingual Library of the United States of America) (Spanish Edition) by Jennifer Way in Back Matter

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	68% buy the item featured on this page: Making Artisan Chocolates 4.6 out of 5 stars (23) $16.49
	21% buy Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner 4.9 out of 5 stars (52) $40.95
	4% buy Candymaking 4.7 out of 5 stars (28) $14.93
	4% buy Chocolate Decorations 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) $59.85

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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 74 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 (cambridge, ma USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, January 13, 2007

By	Robin N. Uncapher (Bethesda, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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!

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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review title, February 16, 2007

By	orangekay (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Exteding the stuy of chocolate
IN THE PERUSAL OF THIS BOOK, IT GIVES INCISIVE INFORMATION ABOUT CHOCLATE AND ITS HANDLING.

Published 3 months ago by F. I. Khattab

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book if you want to make chocolates.
Title says it all. Great book, really good extra tips. Would like a follow up book with more details about types of molds, types of chocolate...

Published 3 months ago by B. Paster

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for tips and recipes
I have dabbled in chocolate making before, focusing my efforts predominantly on rolled truffles. I got this book because I wanted to learn more advanced techniques, especially... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Boston Book Addict

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect!
This is a great book for the beginning chocolatier and maybe for those with more experience, too. The author clearly and concisely describes each step of the process, taking the... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Digigirl

4.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for chocolate lovers
The only area for improvement in this excellent book is a few more photographs of the finished recipes. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Gives Great Advice (GGA)

5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful book
This is a good and very useful book. Several recipes are included that can be made by the beginner, and several that require more experience. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Michael J. Evans

4.0 out of 5 stars My quip is with the editorial review...
"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,... Read more

Published 18 months ago by smartguywithabeard

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
This book is great for anyone who wishes to make great chocolate confections at home. Schotts offers 3 various types of chocolates as well as alternative confections at the end... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Chris Moree

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book for Amateur Chocolatiers
This was a good book about making chocolate confections, mainly truffles. Mr. Shotts goes into detail about the chocolate tempering process, and how to come up with one's own... Read more

Published 21 months ago by C. Huddleston

3.0 out of 5 stars decent book
This was a decent book on chocolate making. I would of preferred pictures of the real finished product instead of the flavors such as a honeycomb and a thyme leaf on a plate or a... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Chef Cindy

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