We can't ever have too many chocolate recipes, can we? Since the quality of chocolate available in the supermarket has dramatically improved over the past twenty years or so, it's great to have a few more cookbooks that focus on using the most widely available products including chocolate bars, cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Here are three recent titles.
First up is a book that falls into the "I can't believe I didn't think of that!" category. The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook. Veteran baking expert and pastry chef Elinor Klivans who has written books on cupcakes, cookies and cakes has created a book devoted to chocolate chips and surprisingly there are only 6 cookie recipes in it. The book contains 45 recipes and is divided into chapters starting with Chocolate Chip Cookies and Candies, Chocolate Chip Brownies, Bars, Muffins and a Tea Loaf, Chocolate Chip Pies, tarts and Puddings, Chocolate Chip Cakes without Frosting, Chocolate Chip Cakes with Frosting and/or Filling and finally Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Desserts. There are recommendations for brands of chocolate chips to use, and happily most of the recipes come together very quickly.
One of Klivan's top picks for chocolate chips is Ghirardelli, especially in the bittersweet category. Ghirardelli has their own cookbook, The Ghirardelli Chocolate Book. A hardback book, it has 16 recipes for cookies, though not all of them are chocolate chip cookies. The book contains 80 recipes in all. The chapters are fairly similar to the chapters in the chocolate chip book, but also include Chocolate Breads and Breakfast and Anything-but-Boring Chocolate Drinks. Despite the ice cream parlor at Ghirardelli Square, there are only two ice cream desserts. The book has many classics like chocolate souffles, flourless chocolate torte, and chocolate fudge sauce plus some new ideas such as butter breakfast scones with chocolate chunks and chocolate dipped lemon cookies.