It’s no big secret than I am a huge Chocolate fan, particularly homemade chocolates. When I was heavily pregnant with my last child I spent quite a few weeks in hospital. I was feeling rather sorry for myself as you might imagine but was instantly lifted when my husband arrived with a big box of homemade ganache chocolates. So when Auberge Du Chocolat arrived in the post, I felt just as excited at the prospect of many more delicious creations.

Aside from the recipes I hadn’t anticipated the book containing other useful information. I am personally familiar with subjects such as bean variety, but as this knowledge is not terribly widespread I was pleased to see it covered here. There is also a good amount of information on basic chocolate preparation techniques. There is even a chapter dedicated to making beautiful presentation packaging, how about a box made entirely from chocolate!

There are also no less than 6 chapters of recipes covering:

Dipped Chocolates

Truffles

Moulded Chocolates

Flavoured Chocolate

Dairy-Free Chocolates

Chocolate and Children

I found it extremely hard to pick which recipes to try out, they all sounded so delicious. I eventually settled on the following.

Black Tie Strawberries

These have to be the smartest fruit around, dressed in their little chocolate tuxedos they are ridiculously cute and mouthwatering. The recipe takes literally minutes to follow and you’re left with beautiful strawberries worthy of any dinner party.

Cinnamon Truffles

I’m not exactly sure what went wrong with this recipe but I ended up with something akin to chocolate flubber. My impression is that this wasn’t entirely correct. However we soldiered on and eventually ended up with slightly flat versions of the truffles from the book. In all honesty I wasn’t overly keen on them but my husband couldn’t seem to get enough. So I’ll put that one down to personal preference.

Next on the list? Lavender Cups or Dulce de Leche or maybe Marzipan Ganache, there’s too much choice!

Would I recommend this book?

If you want to make your own chocolates, particularly to give as gifts then this book would be hard to beat. Despite my slightly odd result with the Cinnamon Truffles there are pages dedicated to common problems so if at first you don’t succeed… It’s beautifully presented with wonderful photography and would make a yummy gift in itself.

Could it be improved in anyway?

I found some of the recipes a little scant in their writing style and they jumped slightly in places. Other than that it’s hard to find many faults.

Details

Publisher:New Holland Publishers Ltd

ISBN:978-1847738202

RRP: £16.99