The Essence of Chocolate - Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Book Reviews

Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Book Reviews

The Essence of Chocolate

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The Essence of Chocolate
Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate
By John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg
Photography by Deborah Jones
Hyperion: New York (2006)
ISBN: 1-4013-0238-6

Reviewed by Herbert White - December 22, 2006

I'm a great fan of cookbooks - I like to read them for the pure enjoyment of the activity and to discover new dishes that I just have to try out in the kitchen. Some cookbooks I read once, maybe try out a few recipes and never return to. While others receive so much use that they quickly become ragged and spotted with errant dough and other ingredients. From the moment I first laid eyes upon The Essence of Chocolate cookbook, I knew that this was one book that would be seeing a great deal of use!

Written by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg and subtitled Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate, this is a no holds barred must have cookbook for any chocolate devotee. Should you happen not to be too keen on chocolate or simply don't like to cook, you'll find that this book also makes an excellent gift and a wonderful coffee-table book. It includes some of the best food photographs that I've come across. The photographs, by Deborah Jones, are so life like that you can almost smell the chocolate!

In addition to a wealth of mouth-watering recipes, this cookbook also includes a fascinating overview on the history of chocolate, how chocolate is grown and made, how cacao is grown and processed, and how the authors grew to become Chocolatiers and founders of the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker company. This enlightening foray into the world of chocolate history and lore is fascinating in its own right. However, the true hallmark of this cookbook is, of course, its more than 100 mouth-watering recipes and the numerous tips and insights into cooking with chocolate.

The recipes in this cookbook are divided into three main sections:

Intensely Chocolate
Essentially Chocolate
A Hint of Chocolate

While most of the recipes in this cookbook can best be classified as desserts or sweet breads, you will also find several non-dessert dishes that contain chocolate such as a unique BBQ Sauce, a Spinach and Walnut Salad with Pears and Nib Vinaigrette, Roasted Squash with Nib Vinaigrette, Three-Bean Chili, and Chile-Marinated Flank Steak. In the realm of desserts, one of my favorite recipes in this book is the one for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies (recipe below). Picking these cookies as my favorite was difficult as there are so many tempting recipes in this cookbook, including:

Chocolate Banana Milkshake
Brown Sugar Meringue Bars
Chocolate Caramels
Chocolate-Marbled Gingerbread
Chocolate Chunk Challah
Dark Chocolate Ice Cream
Fudge
Chocolate Almond Cake
and almost every other recipe in this cookbook!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
From page 85 of The Essence of Chocolate

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
4 ounces 99% unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners' sugar

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the oil, chocolate, and granulated sugar and blend on medium speed. With the mixer running, add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. there may be some small clumps of sugar in the batter at this point. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed, stopping once to scrape down the sides. Mix until just incorporated, 2 to 3 minutes. The dough will be sticky.

Gather the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at lest 2 hours or overnight.

Position the racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.

Pour the confectioners' sugar onto a plate or into a shallow blow. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls, drop onto the sugar, and roll each ball so that all sides are covered. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes for soft, chewy cookies, or 12 minutes for crisp cookies, rotating the pans halfway through baking. the cookies are done when the edges are set (but the tops still have a little give to them). Let cool completely on cooling racks.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days.

Makes 5 Dozen Cookies

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