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(More customer reviews)Nick Malgieri would not be Nick Malgieri if he didn't begin his book with a complete overview of the history and culture of this enigmatic ingredient. You'll get to appreciate what a long road chocolate has traveled since the Spanish conquistadors first learned of it from the Mexican Aztecs in the sixteenth century. Chocolate charmed (and addicted) Europe as a beverage for several centuries, but it wasn't until the nineteenth century that European pioneers like Conrad van Houten, Rudolphe Lindt, and Jean Tobler (all of whose names have been immortalized as high-end chocolate brands), and Americans like James Baker (of the baking chocolate brand) and Milton Hershey (of the Pennsylvania chocolate giant) brought chocolate into the food industry mainstream. Cacao trees are maddeningly difficult to grow; harvesting must be done by hand; beans must be fermented, then sun-dried, then roasted, and only then is the cacao shipped from its tropical home to chocolate factories all over the world. In the factory, the cacao goes through a number of sophisticated and costly processes that result in the many varieties and quality levels of chocolate products we now take for granted.
Nick Malgieri's Chocolate is a demanding, no-compromises book, simply because there are so many ways home cooks can be tempted to relax their standards. Inexpensive "compound chocolate," a product based on cottonseed oil, is one of them. It's easy to work with and inexpensive, but it's not the real thing. Chef Nick would rather have us learn to achieve a temper pure cocoa-butter-based chocolate, the way the professionals do, for better flavor, surface sheen and that quality chocolate "snap." Tempering involves coaxing the fat molecules in the chocolate to line up in the right direction; it requires quick wits and sensitivity to small temperature variances. It sounds tricky at first, but Malgieri is a dedicated teacher; he won't let you fail. You break through barriers, you learn, and you become a better cook.
Food photographer Tom Eckerle's contributions to Chocolate are exquisite, capturing every chocolate grain and nuance of shade, but Malgieri's scholarship, depth and leadership qualities make Chocolate a must-have-on the counter, not the shelf. (It's a handsome volume but, go ahead, stain it.) The cakes section alone is book length: first explaining in detail basic methods for producing cake layers for chocolate cakes, using genoise and sponge cake rounds and sheets, then moving into scores of meticulously delineated examples of plain cakes ("Chocolate Sour Cream Cake"), single-layer cakes ("Vermont Farmhouse Devil's Food Cake"), rolled cakes ("Swiss Roll," and the "Traditional Bûche de Noël" or "Yule Log"), layer cakes ("Chocolate Chestnut Cake"), meringue cakes ("Chocolate Pavlova"), molded cakes ("Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake"), cakes in bowls ("Chocolate and Vanilla Trifle"), and individual cakes ("Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Boiled Icing"). Malgieri goes on to give equal depth to cookies, creams, mousses, custards and soufflés, ices and frozen desserts, pies, tarts and pastries, chocolate confections, sauces and beverages, and finally a pair of sections on the demanding subjects of chocolate decorations and showpieces.
Every recipe in Chocolate fits in with Malgieri's overarching purpose as an educator: to cover the field, teaching, explaining, and coaching serious, intelligent cooks, both amateur and professional. This kind of painstaking groundwork is necessary, if one is to show true respect for the world's most demanding culinary ingredient.
Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com
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