Celebrate with Chocolate: Totally Over-the-Top Recipes (Hardcover)

by Marcel Desaulniers (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Don't let the relatively diminutive size of Marcel Desaulniers's Celebrate with Chocolate fool you. In this age of coffee-table cookbooks, the 45 recipes and 16 pages of color photographs in this book might lull you into thinking that these desserts are simple. But look carefully at the cover and see the important subtitle, Totally Over-the-Top Recipes.

The almost 20 pages of clear, easy-to-follow information on equipment, ingredients, and techniques give the confidence needed to tackle projects like the five-page Dancing Gingerbread Men Peppermint Fudge Cake: super-spicy, mildly chocolaty, moist sponge cake layers are separated by voluminous white chocolate mousse mixed with mini chocolate chips and crushed peppermint candy, and then enveloped with a smooth chocolate glaze and topped with dancing gingerbread men. Not exactly child's play. For those not easily intimidated, Desaulniers has a seriously decadent recipe for Granny's Chocolate-and-Walnut-Covered Coffee-Cocoa Marshmallow Squares. When you finally unstick your kitchen, the dense, richly flavored, chewy marshmallow bites will elicit groans of pleasure.

There are also a few less complicated concoctions such as Bob's Big-Ass Chocolate Brown Sugar and Bourbon Birthday Cake, Double Chocolate Pecan Tart, and the surprisingly easy Cocoa Berry Yogurt Mousse, which comes together in just a few minutes. For the most part, the cakes, cookies, frozen desserts, mousses, candies, and other chocolate treats in Celebrate with Chocolate are not for the faint of heart or the kitchen novice, but if you're seriously into chocolate, and are up for the challenge, let Desaulniers be your guide. --Leora Y. Bloom

From Publishers Weekly
There are two kinds of chocolate obsessives: purists, who like their chocolate unadulterated, more black than brown, more bitter than sweet, and would inject it if they could; and decadents, whose jaded palates can be tempted only by chocolate follies of increasing complexity and sophistication. Desaulniers (Death by Chocolate; Death by Chocolate Cakes; and Desserts to Die For) has emerged from the morbid fascination of his previous books with his obsession intact, taking chocolate machismo to new heights. Many consider his first book to be a certifiable chocolate bible, and may wonder where else Desaulniers can go. Whereas Death by Chocolate overpowers (with Chocolate Devastation), his newest amuses (Chocolate-Banana-Rum-Raisin Ice Cream Cakes with Rum and Almond Twinkle). Desaulniers is famous for his ambitious recipes, but this latest book is really most successful at is simplest. Cocoa Yogurt Mousse cannot take more than five minutes to prepare and tastes like a million bucks; Chocolate Madras Cake thrillingly combines dark chocolate with orange zest and a deep cranberry coulis. And despite Desaulniers's almost militant chocoholism, 40 years in the business have given him a voice more humane and interesting than most of the bad-boy cookbook authors in vogue.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks; 1 edition (October 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688162983
• ISBN-13: 978-0688162986
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #335,243 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marcel does it again..., May 7, 2004

By	H. Grove "owling6683" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I'm a sucker for Marcel Desaulniers' cookbooks. Around the holidays I was in a bookstore and saw "Celebrate with Chocolate" (and oh dear, I was having a chocolate craving at the time)--I just had to bring it home. We immediately used a recipe out of it for my birthday cake (err, cakes--it produced a bunch of little cakes that look just like dominoes), and it was as superb as every other Marcel recipe I've ever had! Those little cakes were so densely fudgy that we ended up splitting them and topping them with ice cream so as to avoid falling over dead of a chocolate overdose.

Sadly this cookbook lacks the gorgeous photos you'll find throughout Marcel's death by chocolate series. Normally I don't really care one way or the other, but he's so darn artistic with his food that the photos really bring something extra to his cookbooks. At least there is a small section of photos in the middle so you aren't entirely deprived.

These are incredibly rich recipes, as evidenced by this note from the ingredients chapter: "My admiration and love for butter has never wavered." Like Marcel's other recipes, these come in pieces. That is to say, instead of having one continuous recipe, a recipe is put together in stages and then assembled. Take Rolf's Old-World Black Forest Cake, for example. It includes a vanilla sugar cookie base, an old-world cocoa sponge cake, glazed cherries, "just a hint of chocolate" buttercream frosting, whipped cream, and chocolate curls. This makes it very easy to mix-and-match recipe components. As usual Marcel's recipes are long, but again this is because he details every step, ensuring a wonderful result. You don't need to be an expert in the kitchen to make his recipes, but you *do* need to be willing to spend real time and effort on a dish--these are show-stoppers, not simple fare.

If that isn't enough to convince you, here are a few recipe titles to get your mouth watering: Cocoa cinnamon chocolate chip shortcakes. White chocolate pumpkin cheesecakes with blackberry pixilation. Slammin' citrus squares with white chocolate-lemon balm icing. Champagne fritters with chocolate grape surprise and sparkling cream. Caramel orange-chocolate orange masquerade ice cream terrine...

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Guru of Gnache is At It Again!, October 23, 2002

By	rodboomboom (Dearborn, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Just when you thought it was safe, having experienced the Death By Chocolate and Decadent Desserts with Chocolate, the consummate chocoahlic main man, Marcel Desaulniers does it again, with this celebratory effort with chocolate!

It has his accustomed "user friendly" features of helpful primer on ingredients and equipment and techniques and sources, and my favorite: "The Chef's Touch" where he comments on substitutes, background, source help,etc.

But the same expected super-creative, super chocolate recipes are over the top in this one! There's cakes and cookies and frozen concoctions, and more!

What can one say about this variety of tempting over the top desserts such as: Champagne Fritters with Chocolate Grape Surprise and Sparkling Cream; Chocolate-Chunk Pineapple Rummies; White Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecakes with Blackberry Pixilation; Dancing Gingerbread Men Peppermint Fudge Cake; Chocolate Cookie Crumble Spiked Berry Ice Cream Cake; Chocolate "Just the Two of Us" Birthday Cake; Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Tree Stump.

With this one joining his other outstanding cookbooks, any home chef is loaded with great ammunition and idea starters for terrific dining! His testing out of the recipes on home equipment and ingredients insures in this reviewers experience that we can duplicate his magnificent creations.

29 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Whimsical Desserts, November 3, 2003

By	jerry i h (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I use the word "whimsical" in the negative sense, as something amusing, unusual, or humorous that most people will not be interested in. So it is with Desaulnier's recent cookbook of "totally over-the-top recipes" (to be fair, though, they are not as outrageous as in some other books). In the end, I suggest that you steer clear of it.

One can criticize this book on several grounds, but the most serious involve the recipe instructions. Almost all of them contain at least a few parts that are either incomplete or downright wrong. This is rather disappointing, as the author has a facility dubbed "Ganache Hill" that is devoted to testing recipes for his cookbooks. For example, his instructions for making an Italian meringue ("Honey, I'm on Cloud Nine" Icing) are too vague for this rather tricky procedure. The eggs for Schnappy Chocolate Cake did not whip properly. The cake layers for his version of Black Forest Cake should be soaked with syrup just before you assemble the cake, not just before you store it the refrigerator (they will get soggy and impossible to handle, I think). The author also states that the flour is "pre-sifted", yet he calls for the flour to be sifted after measurement; he also makes the mistake of not giving weight measurements for flour. One of the cookie recipes ends up as batter rather than a dough, and spread too much on the cookie sheet.

Another objection involves his use of non-standard baking pans: you will need a bewildering array of them, and it is unlikely that you will have any of the; you will have to purchase them specially for a specific recipe. You will also need 2 ovens to bake off the three half-sheet pans (10 x 15) for "Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Tree Stump"; all the batter must be baked off right away, and cannot be stored while you bake one or two sheet pans. You will also need a true jelly roll pan, and three 9-inch cake pans, rather than the usual two. You will also need some disposable gloves, as some recipes require you to manipulate doughs that are very sticky.

Also note that a large stand mixer is required. There are no alternate instructions for either hand-held mixers or using a plain hand whisk. The times given for the mixer are also rather problematic, as he gives just an amount of time in minutes, which is fine if have the same mixer he has. There are insufficient indications in the recipes as to what to look for when executing a step using the mixer; "until soft" is not an adequate instruction.

Another problem I encountered is that some of the recipes are either time consuming or difficult to execute properly, as many of them rely on expert decorative touches. There are no indications in the recipes to alert you to this. The unwary home baker can easily stumble into a recipe that is either beyond his/her scope or available time.

On the plus side, there are a couple of recipes that are valuable to have. "She Ain't Heavy" Chocolate Cake is one of the richest and chocolate-laden I have tasted, and plan to keep as part of my repertoire of standard recipes (although it shrinks quite a bit when it cools). You will also find a recipe for a whole-egg butter sponge cake, also known as a genoise, flavored with chocolate: Old-World Cocoa Sponge Cake. While this is a standard professional recipe, it is also a valuable recipe for the home baker. There is also a rare recipe for homemade marshmallows; I found the flavor a little too intense compared to the one I usually use (the one in the old version the Joy of Cooking).