The Art of the Chocolatier: From Classic Confections to Sensational Showpieces Hardcover – January 18, 2011

I’ve had a lot of experience with chocolate. But I learned a few new things from reading this book. I bought it mainly for new bonbon recipe ideas and it has that….and more.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. My main point of comparison is Greweling's "Chocolates and Confections" book. Mind you, they aren't exactly the same, as Notter's book only covers chocolate and not confections, but I'm going to compare Notter's book to Greweling's chocolate section. When I was first looking for a chocolate book, I bought Greweling's book. But I was unsatisfied and found that Notter's book was the one I was looking for as someone who's worked briefly in the pastry arts.Notter's book is more concise, and in a good way (at least to me!). Greweling is very detailed and a little too textbook like. I preferred Notter because he was able to get to the practical point without taking up 5 pages. In some cases, the technical details can help you troubleshoot, but I think that Notter still provides the meat and bones to let you do this.As for technique, I find that Notter wins hands down. He has extremely useful tips that I haven't read anywhere else--tips for working cleanly, common problems, etc. There are also much more detailed instructions and guidelines to using cocoa butter and making other decorations than in Notter's book.Finally, the recipes. For whatever reason, I just plain didn't find many of the recipes in Greweling's book very appealing. There were maybe one or two recipes that I wanted to try. On the other hand, there were several in Notter's book that I immediately bookmarked. I guess it's just my taste profile. I tried a few of Greweling's recipes and found them just so-so.The chocolate showpiece section is also very useful and well laid-out though it wasn't really a reason I bought the book.

I rank this excellent book as equal but different from Greweling's splendid tome on "Chocolate and Confections". The two complement each other very well. The Classic Confections component of this book has many great recipes for truffles, dipped and molded chocolates, with a great deal of special attention given to decoration by using many colored cocoa butter techniques. After learning the basics from Greweling and Schotts (whose splendid little book on "Making Artisan Chocolates" is a necessary addition to any aspiring chocolatier's collection) I was keen on learning more about the magic of coloring chocolates.While the Greweling book is more focused on the science and theory, this one adds greatly to one's repertoire by broadening the range of flavors and decoration experimentation.I found the showpiece component interesting, and imagine it would be a fantastic primer for someone interested in entering chocolate competitions.The text is clear, well organized with superb pictures.The three books mentioned above are totally sufficient as a good chocolate library. I found the Recchiutti "Chocolate Obsession" and Pierre Herme books to be far less useful.

So, I just did a review of Andrew Garrison Shotts' book, Making Artisan Chocolates. That is an excellent book! BUT, this one goes beyond artisan chocolates in its scope of the craft.The section on making chocolate sculptures is nothing short of amazing! And, the fact that Ewald Notter even includes templates for the sculptures was just an awesome surprise to find!!! I am just a little too excited about starting to work out of that section of the book. Sculptures are something I haven't done previously, but, with Notter's detailed, step by step instruction...I am not at all intimidated by the challenge to create something. I am so grateful to have found another amazing book to work from, and take this art to a new level!

A must have book for any aspiring chocolatier

This is a beautiful book that provides lots of inspiration. The recipes go from basic to complicated, starting with simple chocolates formed in molds, progressing to truffles, then culminating in show-stopping architectural creations that look less like chocolate and more like small-scale sculptures. There are lots of pictures and fairly detailed instructions for each project.I can only give 4 stars, though, because I found the book oddly lacking in the information that would be useful for beginners who are just starting to make their own chocolates. The book lists and explains all the tools that a chocolatier uses, for example, but I would have appreciated some information identifying the "starter" tools that a beginner really needs to have. (E.g.: You DO need candy molds. You DON'T need a guitar cutter. You DO need a spatula. You DON'T need a marble slab.) The book also provides very little information about the fundamental ingredient, chocolate (or more specifically, couverture). There is a paragraph explaining what couverture is, and telling you to use it, but there is precious little information about how different formulations and different percentages/ratios of cocoa butter and cocoa solids affect the finished product. With well over 700,000 Google hits for the word "couverture," moreover, a list of recommended suppliers or brands would have been useful.I've enjoyed the book and have started making my own chocolates, which have turned out pretty well, but just a couple more pages in the first two chapters (before the book dives into the recipes) would have been very useful.