Chocolate American Style (Hardcover)

by Lora Brody (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Having confessed her jones for chocolate in Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet: A Memoir with Recipes Lora Brody celebrates her love affair with the Dark Lord in her cookbook, Chocolate American Style. What she calls American style might best be summed up as, "I want it and I want it now!" To which Lora Brody responds with, "Just how would you like to deliver chocolate to your mouth?" She leaves no chocolate base unturned.

Candy? There's an entire chapter (the complexities of melting and tempering are covered in Chapter One, "A Primer for the Home Cook," in which the author spells out what you need and what to do with it, fast and sweet and easy, with the marvelous closing line at the open door, "remember that no matter what your dessert looks like, the fact that you took the time and energy to make it instantly puts it ten pegs above anything you could buy a store."). You might think breakfast was out of the question, Cocoa Puffs aside. To which the author delivers chocolate caramel sticky buns, chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate butter, and chocolate-filled monkey bread. Brody moves through flans, pudding, pies, fudge cakes; through birthday cakes, marble cakes, tortes, and ice cream rolls; through home-made ice cream, fudge sauce, chocolate sauce, and frappe; through Old World faves brought here by our immigrant elders. She tackles pound cakes, cookies, brownies galore, moon rocks, chocolate squares and, Russell Crowe Bars, which border on don't ask don't tell. She encourages in a chapter all its own--"Kids in the Kitchen"--recruiting children to the ways of the Dark Lord. Shameless. And then there's romance. Make that, "Romance." Again, an entire chapter that distills the essence of the romantic gesture into all manner of chocolaty deliciousness.

Brody is a consummate pro--20 cookbooks into a sterling career--and she doesn't miss a beat. She knows a thing or two about producing a recipe that delivers. Some cookbooks come from the heart. Chocolate American Style, on the other hand, comes straight from the Lora Brody's central nervous system. It's a chocoholic's dream come true. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly
Early on in her celebratory recipe collection, Brody (Growing Up on a Chocolate Diet) addresses the difficulty of cooking with chocolate and explains the tools and procedures necessary for success when attempting her recipes. No chocolate snob, the author favors quality ingredients but minimal fuss for her desserts. Her credo is "Lemme at it" instead of "It's much too pretty to cut." Brody's first chapter lays out the differences among unsweetened, bittersweet and semi-sweet; simplifies a method of chocolate preparation called tempering; and distinguishes between "natural" cocoa powder and "Dutch process" cocoa. Brody's attention to detail makes a few of her recipes longer than usual. Later chapters deal with candy making, holiday baked goods and introducing kids to cooking with chocolate projects. Brody believes Americans "boldly weave what we learn from the world's greatest cooks with our own dining experiences to produce singular expressions of our chocolate love," and supports her point in nearly 120 recipes. There are clever cake and pie makeovers, in which she "Americanizes" international favorites like biscotti, chow mein noodles and Linzer Torte with chocolate. Brody's democratic approach embraces the plain (e.g., Coke Cake and Chocolate-Covered Cape Cod Potato Chips), the luxe (e.g., White Chocolate-Coconut Milk Crème Brulee) and the downright odd (e.g., Chocolate Chile Cake). Her can-do writing style invites novices to give all these desserts a go and should appeal to home chefs with a sweet tooth and average culinary skills. (On sale Apr. 13)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (April 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400045975
• ISBN-13: 978-1400045976
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #732,249 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy new book of largely new Chocolate Recipes, April 29, 2004

By	B. Marold (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In a review of Alice Medrich's book, `Bittersweet', I said:

"No one should try to do any serious work with chocolate without reading this book or another equally good book on the subject. One of the first things you learn in this book is that there are as many, if not more subtleties and ambiguities in the marketing of chocolate as there are in just about any other basic food product such as flour or olive oil."

This book has an equally skillful introduction to dealing with chocolate. I even believe this book is a better introduction to working with chocolate than the title from Ms. Medrich due to Ms. Brody's exceptional ability to explain potentially difficult techniques. She is especially candid in saying that the first time you try some techniques like tempering chocolate, you may simply not succeed. But, she insists that you keep trying and with due diligence, you will succeed. This combination of clarity and honesty is worth a lot.

This book is similar to Gale Gand's book `short + sweet' in the way it finds a place for itself in your daily family activities with partner and kids. It is also similar to Karen Baker's new book `Sweet Stuff' in its claiming to evoke a homegrown, American style of chocolate. All three books are worthy purchases that largely meet their objectives. But, they are not the kind of book which grabs you by the lapels and shakes you up with it's enthusiasm or insights or inspiration like, for example Wayne Harley Brachman's `American Desserts' or Sherry Yard's extraordinary new book `The Secrets of Baking'.

The first crack in the premise of `Chocolate American Style' is the suggestion that Americans eat more chocolate than anyone else in the world. I just saw a statistic that indicates the English eat three times more chocolate then we colonists eat. Another lapse in the book's premise comes when the author devotes an entire chapter `Old World - New World' to chocolate laden versions of European classics such as Mandelbrot, Rugelach, Biscotti, Scones, Panini, and the quintessentially Austrian Linzer Torte. Various other recipes also cite French inspirations and how they can show us colonials a thing or two. The final indignity is the recipe devised to immortalize Russell Crowe, which incorporates as many Australian products as the author could fit into one recipe.

Like Karen Baker's `American' baking book, a whole lot of the recipes in this book are author's originals rather than traditional American classics. In fact, one reality of contemporary cookbooks peeks out from some pages of this book in that it becomes clear that a lot of the recipes in the book are neither traditionally American nor written by the nominal author. Several recipes are original contributions by Susan Schwartz who is primarily credited in the Acknowledgments with Emmy Clausing as someone who researched, tested, and fine-tuned recipes.

None of these pet peeves diminish the quality of the book. It is not the best book you can get on chocolate, but it is very good in general and especially good for working with families. Like Gale Gand's book, it includes a chapter of recipes specifically written for kids to make. This alone may be worth the price of admission. In fact, it would have been much more appropriate to entitle the book `Chocolate Family Style'. The kids chapter includes recipes such as chocolate-covered graham crackers, chocolate cereal treats, peanut butter cups, and chocolate caramel popcorn. Makes you glad that chocolate is actually good for you. All the recipes taste very, very good and the author has a genuine, well-recognized talent for communicating them to you.

The book does include a number of genuine American classic recipes such as chocolate chip cookies, ice cream cakes, and chocolate ice cream sundaes. Yes, the book also includes recipes for ice cream.

Recommended. Some recipes are tough going simply because chocolate is just downright finicky. The author gives you the confidence to believe it will all come out in the end.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wonderful Chocolate Cookbook, April 26, 2004

By A Customer

I am a serious baker and possess many chocolate books. Some of the ancient ones are fine books written by Austrian women with an empathy for the ingredient. Most of the more recent ones are rather pedestrian, pandering to passing (and passe) fashion and are not worth much more than a cursory glance. Some even try to make chocolate recipes low fat!! I must immediately exclude Nigella Lawson from those categories!

This book, however, is a tantalising work of art, and indeed literature. I have been reading it compulsively since I got it a few days ago. I have tried several of the amazing recipes and they are even better than imagined. I fell priveleged to share the recipes that the author has collected over her wondrous career. BUY IT!!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Delicious, October 7, 2005

By	Kschraf (AZ, USA) - See all my reviews

Everything I have made so far has been incredible. The chocolate cheesecake recipe has to be the best cheesecake recipe in existence. However, you'd have to have a mighty big bread machine to make the recipes which say they can be made in a bread machine. So that technique hasn't worked for me, there was so much dough it really gummed up my machine. Otherwise, wow!!!