Chocolate Bar: Recipes and Entertaining Ideas for Living the Sweet Life

Rating:
Summary: Best Chocolate Store
Review: Fabulously irreverant! I truly enjoyed the authors blend of retro-reconfigured recipes with racy lifestyle aesthetics. A top-notch syle guide from the winner of TimeOut New York's 2004 Eat Out Award for 'Best Chocolate Store'.

My BF bought me this book and a great tasting beverage to drink it with. Since he knows I quit coffee recently, he's been really wonderful helping me in cope with my mood swings. S o y f e e is made from soy beans that is roasted just like coffee. I enjoy the taste and don't miss coffee one bit. Buy it online at www.s o y c o f fee.com.

This book is excellent! Great Book.

Rating:
Summary: A delicious book! (And the chocolate is good, too...)
Review: From snazzy photos and classy layout to text right on the mark, CHOCOLATE BAR is a top notch production from cover to cover. Even more impressive, the chocolate recipes are pure sin--but I doubt that anyone will repent after the first bite. Or the twentieth... Expect your mouth to water and your palate to yearn. This is the one, oh fellow chocolate aficionados. This book was written for ---US---!

Rating:
Summary: Fun with Chocolate
Review: I have a very large cookbook collection and was amused to add this unique title to my bookshelf. This is not your typical chocolate book, it contains tougne in cheek ideas on how to throw a chocolate tasting (both funny and helpful), sly sidebars, and tips on how to accentuate any party with chocolate (these authors are obsessed).

The portraits of both the people and the food are coffee-tablesque and amusing.

Finally, the recipes are arranged into classic, retro, swank and future categories with both your tried and true (delicious brownies) to your truly odd (chocolate gelatin). Everything I have made so far has been perfect and I have several requests for copies of both the hot chocolate and the spiced chocolate oatmeal cookies.



Rating:
Summary: "Eat More Chocolate"--Who wouldn't agree with that?
Review: I love baking and own A LOT of cookbooks. Chocolate Bar stands out on my shelf because the recipes are fantastic. I'm more than a little intimitated by their mole recipe and the towering cake but others like the pudding, brownies, gelatin (who knew?), RED VELVET!!!, fudge, and the awe-inspiring chocolate cake will soon be dog eared and smudged. Perfect and delicious. Not sure how I feel about the body scrub--why waste chocolate if you're not going to eat it?

This book has your standards--cookies, brownies, cakes, history of chocolate, kitchen supplies--but a really nice touch is the party ideas. I love fondue and the authors' idea for a fondue party would be a great thing to do this winter. On a final note--the photos. What's great about these are they show the way the food will really look--crumbly, gooey, and lopsided. The people shots are a nice touch, too.

Rating:
Summary: Chocolate Bar takes the cake
Review: This a great combination coffee table book/cookbook. I bought a copy for myself and have made the peanut butter cupcakes (delish and ended up looking exactly as they do in the photo), as well as the red velvet cake which my mid-Westerner boyfriend devoured. I also picked up a copy for my best friend's birthday. She's not as experienced in baking as I am, but she found the recipes easy to follow, and the drink recipes mouth-wateringly luscious.

As a design-freak, I love the graphic design and the photos. They authors also give great advice about presentation for all of the recipes-something that is oft overlooked. And hey, who doesn't like chocolate?