I Love Desserts: Celebrate with Chocolate

Celebrate with Chocolate
Totally Over the Top Recipes

by Marcel Desaulniers

Celebrate with Chocolate Who can resist the lure of chocolate? In his new cookbook, America's guru of ganache, acclaimed cookbook author, award-winning pastry chef and restauranteur, Marcel Desaulniers offers the biggest and best collection of chocolate desserts available—dozens of delectable sweets of every variety, from cakes to cookies and pudding pops to pies.

In Celebrate with Chocolate, Desaulniers passionately describes his love affair with chocolate, gushing, "More than a momentary sensation of pleasure, chocolate has enriched and distinguished my life." Filled with a spectacular collection of dessert recipes, Celebrate with Chocolate offers outstanding recipes for every mood and season.

In addition, Desaulniers offers useful information about equipment, ingredients, and techniques, including a comparison of thermometer types and a section on different varieties of chocolate and the melting times for various measurements.

In four chapters, "Cakes," "Cookies," "Frozen Desserts," and "Mousses, Candies and other Chocolate Treats," Desaulniers divulges recipes for 45 spectacular desserts that will leave you swooning with desire. "When it comes to celebrating, nothing beats cake," he says. Over the-top recipes include Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Tree Stump, a newfangled version of the traditional French Christmas cake, bûche de Noël, and Mrs. D's "She Ain't Heavy" Chocolate Cake, named after the author's mother and touted as "the most perfect piece of chocolate cake vou could possibly imagine passing your lips." A Chocolate Madras Cake, filled with the unconventional combination of chocolate, cranberry and orange flavors, is based on the popular cocktail, the Madras, and Bob's Big-Ass Chocolate Brown Sugar and Bourbon Birthday Cake, an elaborate (and "humongous") eight-layer cake, measuring ten inches in height and seven in width, oozes with rich chocolate buttercream frosting and gets a healthy kick from bourbon.

A dizzying array of cookie recipes includes clever Chocolate Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cookies, whimsically made to fool the eye. Two pieces of "bread" (cookie dough) are held together with peanut butter and grape jelly. Chocolate-Chunk Pineapple Rummies get a tropical flair from coconut, rum and dried pineapple, and Slammin' Citrus Squares with white Chocolate-Lemon Balm Icing offer a delightful balance of super-tart citrus curd and sweet, creamy white chocolate, atop a buttery cookie crust.

Frozen desserts in Celebrate with Chocolate are nothing short of decadent, with treats such as Chocolate-Banana-Rum Raisin Ice Cream Cakes with Rum and Almond Twinkle (a brittle-like concoction), Chocolate Grasshopper Ice Cream Sandwich, a refined adaptation of the Southern favorite, Grasshopper Pie, and Chocolate Brandy Swirl Eggnog Ice Cream, a frosty rendition of rich eggnog.

Marcel Desaulniers hopes to persuade his readers that life is a celebration, and that all celebrations deserve chocolate. An imaginative book filled with decadent recipes, Celebrate with Chocolate, is sure to do just that.

About the Author

Marcel Desaulniers is the executive chef and the owner of Trellis Restaurant in williamsburg, VA. He has received several national awards, including Food & wine magazine's "Honor Roll of American Chefs," the who's who of Food and Beverage in America, the prestigious Ivy Award from Restaurants and Institutions. He is the author of eight previous cookbooks, including the recent Death By Chocolate Cakes, nominated for an IACP award, and Desserts to Die For, which received an IACP/Julia Child Award.

Buy the Book!

Celebrate with Chocolate
Totally Over the Top Recipes
by Marcel Desaulniers
William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins
Price: $24.95; Hardcover
ISBN: 0688162983
Information provided by the publisher.