Alice Medrich on chocolate
Review by Chocolate-adorer and critic ('oh yes, please') J. Zimmerman

Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate by Alice Medrich. Je'oan D'ark Limoncello Truffles. Alice Medrich on chocolate. Fran Bigelow on chocolate. Mort Rosenblum on chocolate. Also chocolate taste tests: Chocolate Taste Test method by Chantal Cody. The Two Chloés: plain chocolate bars taste test. The Two Chloés: Vosges chocolate bars taste test. The Two Chloés: Zotter chocolate bars taste test. Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum. Includes the secrets of the food of the gods. Let him advise you what chocolate to try on your chocolate pilgrimages.

A delightful chocolate-stained book by Alice Medrich, founder of the Berkeley bakery Cocolat in Berkeley (back in 1976).

Delicious result from favorite recipes include:

• Chocolate-Flecked Cocoa Soufflés.
• Cold Creamy Truffles.
• Cream Scone with Chocolate Chunks [an easy recipe that made light, delicious scones on Day 3 of a 2008 chocolate class].
• Extra-Bittersweet Ganache Truffles.
• Grappa, Currant, and Pine-Nut Torte.
• Macadamia Shortbread Brownies.
• Melting Chocolate Meringue.
• Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
• Queen of Sheba Torte (Medrich's signature).
• Raspberry-Laced Chocolate Cake.
• Savory: Coq au Vin.
• Savory: Roasted Squash Soup with Cocoa Bean Cream.
• Warm Bittersweet Mousse

"Chocolate Notes" for various recipes show how to alter by using chocolates with a higher or lower percentage of "chocolate liquor" (cocoa content). Her "Chocolate Notes" include such recommendations as:

For the chopped chocolate, you will get the most flavor from a bittersweet in the 70% range, but you will have good results with standard semisweet or bittersweet chocolates ... or any marked 50% to 72%. Chocolate chips are acceptable as well, just not as wonderful.

For truffle ganache (filling to be coated) her chocolate-to-cream ratio (leading to roughly 1 pound of truffles) is:

Basic Truffles	10 ounces bittersweet or semisweet	5 to 6 ounces heavy cream	Coat with TEMPERED chocolate
Cold Creamy Truffles	8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet. Increase to 9 ounces if adding optional 2 TBSP rum or other liquor	1 C (8 ounces) heavy cream. Mix ganache minimally to blend. Refrigerate at least 4 hours till firm enough to form balls. [Freeze for an hour or two if ganache is too runny.] Cover pan of balls and FREEZE (several hours and up to 2 months).	Coat with UNTEMPERED (!!!) chocolate. Refrigerate truffles to: preserve the freshness of the cream (double in this recipe compared with basic truffles), maintain form, and prevent discoloring bloom).

For tempering chocolate (such as to coat a ganache truffle filling) she guides you through a series of steps, with these highlights:

Melt 1 pound chocolate, warming it slowly till mainly melted

Stir to mix and complete melting.

Let the chocolate cool to 100 degrees F; drop in a couple of 2-oz chunks of pre-tempered chocolate.

Stir constantly till 90 degrees F for dark chocolate or 88 degrees F for white or milk chocolate.

Use her temper test (see her book).

Once chocolate is tempered, remove the unmelted portions of the chunks.

But her inventiveness and willingness to share her method (based on instinct and experimentation) encourage the reader to develop their own recipes.

And be sure to read her chatty autobiographical notes at the start of each chapter, to discover how she adapted the recipes of others or (from naive experimentation) made her own discoveries such as Cold Creamy Truffles.

Lastly, note that she "lost faith in blink tastings a while back ... I realized that the results said less about the chocolate and more about the experience and demographics of the twelve tasters ... outliers are likely to lose points just for being different."

Books that use Chocolate

• Remember that the better DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts) professors in The Harry Potter Books administer chocolate for recovery of strength.

• The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin (2002).
  See also our blog for The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
  More puns than Nostradamus Ate My Hamster and an even better plot than my previous favorite, The Fandom of the Operator. A serial killer is mowing down the famous elite of Toy Town (now grown into a Toy City) but thanks to a crack[ed] detective team of a 13-year-old boy and Ed, the teddy bear, ... Rankin's work is the love-child of Douglas Adams and Monty Python on a date with Kafka. A lot of fun and drama, thanks especially to Rankin's excellent CD reading.

Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate by Alice Medrich. Je'oan D'ark Limoncello Truffles. Alice Medrich on chocolate. Fran Bigelow on chocolate. Mort Rosenblum on chocolate. Also chocolate taste tests: Chocolate Taste Test method by Chantal Cody. The Two Chloés: plain chocolate bars taste test. The Two Chloés: Vosges chocolate bars taste test. The Two Chloés: Zotter chocolate bars taste test.

Related pages: Books on Buddhism. Books on Learning Spanish. Poetry - Learn How to Write Your Own. Forests of California and Trees of the World.

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