Chocolates and Confections at Home with The Culinary Institute of America Hardcover – December 11, 2009

I love chocolate, and Chef Greweling covers it all. What makes this book so great, is that Chef Greweling is the chocolate professor at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). It is like taking his class, without having to spend all that money, just get the book. With this book, you could teach yourself how to make all types of candy. The photos are great and really help to explain his techniques.This book has a complete chapter on "Chocolate Master Techniques", types and description of the different types of chocolate, and how to work with these chocolates. He has a whole chapter on truffles, chocolates, and fudge. He also covers over how to make other types of candies from scratch, such as brittles, toffees, taffies, fondant, pralines, marshmallow, nougat, jellies, and nuts. You could spend thousands of dollars learning to make chocolate and candy at a culinary school or you could just buy his book.I took a 32 hour candy making class at Wilton cake decorating outside Chicago, which was great, and I highly recommend it. This book is a great companion to the class. It shows you everything you need to know to make great candy from scratch at home. With this book, you could teach yourself how to make all types of chocolate and candy from scratch.This book is a treasured piece in my culinary library.

I have a lot of cookbooks, many of which are candy and dessert books. I've been freelance (just do it!!) cooking for most of my life, including having made pull-taffy with my mom as a child. Over the years, I have had good and bad luck with various attempts at candymaking. Some of my divinity comes out perfect, some is dry. Pralines that are creamy, some that are grainy. Fudge that is perfectly made and some that is hard and short. What gives? This book does. It has a full explanation of all techniques to be used at the beginning of each chapter, before you even get to the recipes. This is great because it helps you resist the temptation to just jump into trying something; after all, it must be important for you to know a technique if they tell you before they give you the recipe in which you will use that technique. It actually repeats everything for you because before the recipes, it goes through the entire process without measurements so that you can't make it at that point! I found that I actually read the entire book, cover to cover, before even attempting anything. My chocolate tempered perfectly, which was the first thing I did. Next will be either cherry cordials or maybe more divinity.I feel much more confident in my ability to create perfect confections. Perfect every time. There are also a lot of recipes for confections I'd never considered, as well as ones I'd never heard of. All because I don't just know what I want to do, but how to do it, and why it works. Lots of history, interesting asides, and very clear instructions. All in all, a definite must-have.

I just got this book the other day. And was totally amazed at how simple it was to follow, how the recipes were layed out, the pictures and step by step... It was like having the instructor right there with you... I started off doing a caramel thing that I was enrobing in chocolate... I had a little bit of trouble finding some info, BUT it was all there, I just happened to over look what I was looking for the first time through... So Bad Me!. This book is well worth more than what they are asking. I am very proud to have it. And I'm going to do a book report on it for my cooking blog. I think this is one of those books that every one should have in there collection.... I'm thinking about giving this book to several grandkids that are into cooking and desserts. It's a book that anyone can learn from... Very well done...

I highly recommend this book. Besides the great recipes and plenty of beautiful photographs, this book explains what to do when things go wrong. While other books I have also explain how to temper chocolate, they end with "test for temper". This book goes into what to do when the chocolate is NOT tempered and how to easily fix it.The first recipe I tried was the peanut butter cups (level 3 in difficulty) and they came out beautifully the first time. My family loved them, although they do not like Reese's peanut butter cups. They really noticed the difference in flavor when quality ingredients are used.If I could only have one chocolate book, this would be IT.On a little side note, before I started making chocolates, I was concerned about the amount of wasted chocolate, but I solved the problem by "cleaning" my chocolate bowl with hot milk--delicious. Also, leftover peanut butter filling tastes wonderful over vanilla ice cream.

This book is great! Full of helpful tips and pointers in addition to great recipes! Great education on chocolate--I learned so much just from a first read!Covers far more than chocolates--nougats, taffy, toffee, sugared fruit, etc. The instructions are easy to understand and give you confidence that this is actually something you can learn to do at home! I have made chocolates and candies before, but without much knowledge about what I was doing, so while they tasted great, they didn't have that "look" that professional candy-makers achieve. I am confident that when I make treats for Christmas and Valentine's Day gift boxes next, that I will have far better results. It really is like taking a course!

Book arrived quickly. Good information for the home cook to get professional results.

Hands down THE book to own for anyone serious about making homemade candies!!!!