In recipes for everything from Hot Chocolate to Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet, from Moist and Nutty Brownies to the legendary chocolate caramel extravaganza the Faubourg Pave, readers will benefit from Hermé's 25 years of experience, his limitless creativity, and his obvious passion for his profession. This volume is destined to become a classic.
-from Amazon.com website

Don't let the relatively diminutive size of Marcel Desaulniers's Celebrate with Chocolate fool you. In this age of coffee-table cookbooks, the 45 recipes and 16 pages of color photographs in this book might lull you into thinking that these desserts are simple. But look carefully at the cover and see the important subtitle, Totally Over-the-Top Recipes. The almost 20 pages of clear, easy-to-follow information on equipment, ingredients, and techniques give the confidence needed to tackle projects like the five-page Dancing Gingerbread Men Peppermint Fudge Cake: super-spicy, mildly chocolaty, moist sponge cake layers are separated by voluminous white chocolate mousse mixed with mini chocolate chips and crushed peppermint candy, and then enveloped with a smooth chocolate glaze and topped with dancing gingerbread men. Not exactly child's play. For those not easily intimidated, Desaulniers has a seriously decadent recipe for Granny's Chocolate-and-Walnut-Covered Coffee-Cocoa Marshmallow Squares. When you finally unstick your kitchen, the dense, richly flavored, chewy marshmallow bites will elicit groans of pleasure. There are also a few less complicated concoctions such as Bob's Big-Ass Chocolate Brown Sugar and Bourbon Birthday Cake, Double Chocolate Pecan Tart, and the surprisingly easy Cocoa Berry Yogurt Mousse, which comes together in just a few minutes. For the most part, the cakes, cookies, frozen desserts, mousses, candies, and other chocolate treats in Celebrate with Chocolate are not for the faint of heart or the kitchen novice, but if you're seriously into chocolate, and are up for the challenge, let Desaulniers be your guide.
-from Amazon.com website

Fans of high-end chocolate delights have long flocked to Robert Linxe's La Maison du Chocolat, a Paris-based confection-boutique "chain." La Maison du Chocolat, blissfully photo-illustrated in color, offers readers an introduction to Linxe's art and craft, plus 65 recipes for a wide range of treats, from candies and cakes to creams, mousses, soufflés, and more.
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"Chicago teacher Elaine Gonzalez and photographer Frankie Frankeny have produced a beautiful and useful book of techniques and recipes called 'The Art of Chocolate'. In addition to cakes, desserts and confections (including half-a-dozen truffle creations), Gonzales creates chocolate leaves, flours, cups, baskets and boxes. It's for chocolate lovers of an artistic bent."
-from Amazon.com website

No doubt about it: chocolate rules. Celebrating this happy fact is Marcel Desaulniers's Death by Chocolate Cakes, another installment in his bestselling Death by Chocolate series. These books bring chocolate sweets to, well, heart-stopping heights. Cake, which contains 50 or so recipes for goodies such as Chocolate Heart of Darkness Cakes (dense chocolate cupcakes with a molten chocolate-truffle center) and Excessively Expressive Espresso Fantasy (chocolate ganache-filled chocolate espresso cake topped with espresso mousse), also includes formulas for chocolate ice creams, drinks, and sauces--all in all a true debauch. Though its recipes are painstakingly written and easy to follow, most require multiple, technically exacting preparations; aside from chocolate voyeurs, they'll be of greatest interest to reasonably skilled bakers with time to spare.
-from Amazon.com website

From the "mix-and-dump" variety to the exquisitely layered and filled Marjolaine, Michele Urvater's Chocolate Cake makes sure that no matter how much time you have or your level of kitchen experience--whether you prefer sweet to bitter chocolate, whether you're looking for something fancy to impress or something easy to make someone happy--you will find a chocolate cake to fit the bill in this book. Urvater has both studied and taught the culinary arts, and readers reap the benefits of her knowledge. She begins with a clear and informative chapter on ingredients, one on baking equipment, and one on techniques, and then organizes the recipes from simple to most complex. Because they are all chocolate cakes, chapters are divided by technique. Plain and Easy Batter Cakes include easy favorites like the Classic Brownie, with its crispy crunchy top protecting a moist and chewy interior, and a Chocolate Pudding Cake, a soufflé-like cake on top of a custardy layer--heavenly when warm from the oven. A short chapter on cheesecakes gets creative with smooth and silky creations such as the Berry White Chocolate Cheesecake. Butter and Shortened Cakes start with the Dependable Chocolate Pound Cake with numerous variations, and move on to the most delectable, delicious, and easy-to-make Chocolate Banana Tea Cake. Rich and moist, studded with chocolate chips, nuts, and dried fruit, it is with great pleasure that we read that it's "fabulous for breakfast." Urvater continues to tempt with foam cakes, biscuit cakes, individual cakes, flourless cakes, and icings, and then explains a number of fancy decorative techniques like Caramel Shards and Meringue Mushrooms. Even though everything is chocolate, the varieties are endless. With 150 recipes for desserts like Streusel-Woven Chocolate Coffee Cake, Minted Chocolate Cake, White Chocolate Flourless Cake with Lemon, and the Gianduja (an aromatic hazelnut praline and chocolate "creamy concoction"), no chocolate lover should be without this delectably chocolate volume.
-from Amazon.com website