[.ca] Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (ISBN 0740758160)

From Amazon.com:
When it was first published in 1980, Maida Heatter's Book of Chocolate Desserts became a New York Times bestseller and then won a James Beard award. The book is Heatter's third, a mouthwatering compendium of superb but easily achieved chocolate cakes, cookies, pies, puddings, confections, sauces, and more. Like all of Heater's books, Chocolate Desserts balances good taste with warm, meticulous instruction that anticipates and addresses every question and concern a dessert-maker might have. Cooks at every skill level, from amateur to professional, will find Heater's recipes, and their results, a joy. Arranged by categories like cakes, pastries, and cold and hot desserts, the hundreds of recipes are a chocolate-lover's dream come true. There are classic Heatter offerings, like her Palm Beach Brownies, the ultimate in dark, chewy fudginess, and her Positively-the-Absolute-Best Chocolate Chip Cookies (they are). Other must-make treats include Amaretto-Amaretti Chocolate Cheesecake with Chocolate Cigarettes, Chocolate Merry-Go-Round Cake, Chocolate Pecan Angel Pie, and 4-Star French Chocolate Ice Cream. The book begins with a comprehensive introduction to ingredients, equipment, and techniques and is filled throughout with Heatter's invaluable advice. Drawings by Toni Evans illuminate the exemplary text. --Arthur Boehm

The best and most usable chocolate cookbook:
I have many chocolate cookbooks that look better but not perform better. I lost my copy and it's like losing an arm. There is not a better chocolate cookbook out there.

If you like chocolate, buy this book:
I've had this book for 20 years and love it. I've made many recipes very successfully because the instructions are so clear. Particular favorites are the chocolate madeleines, the chocolate pumpkin cake and the combo of Maida's chocolate ice cream (it ain't brown, it's CHOCOLATE) and hot fudge. Yum!

I wish I could give this a 6-star rating!:
I've come to this page because my copy of "Great Chocolate Desserts" is falling apart from so much use & I need to replace it. I use it so much because I trust it completely. Every cookbook should be written like this one. Before each recipe Heatter describes the end product. Her instructions are incredibly thorough & easy to follow. She even gives advice on which brands of chocolate work best. And the results are terrific. I've earned the reputation of being a superb dessert-maker only because I rely so heavily on this book!

An Excellent Resource:
I've really enjoyed everything that I've made from this book. Last July, my daughter made the Marbelized Chocolate Cheesecake to serve to her guests at her tenth birthday party, which I've made quite a few times. I've also made the mint chocolate mousse on a number of occasions. On one, I brought some mousse to a friend's house. She said, after having a bite, "Come on, where's the rest of it? Go get it and bring it over here!". Unfortunately, we had brought her the full recipe.

6 stars? 10 would do this book justice.:
I've had this book for 20 years and made nearly everything in it. The only recipe which I think must have a mistake in it is the "pepper" brownies. I've never been able to make them come out, and I've varied the cooking times, the tempetature, the ingrediants etc. Ok, my favorite is the "French Chocolate Mint Truffles." You can vary this one to your heart's content. First, you can roll the results in "dipping chocolate" get a bar of high quality chocolate heat on a double boiler and use a fork to dip the cured truffle, place on wax paper to cool. Second, you can use almost any flavoring, almond, coconut, orange, lemon, peppermint, etc. Third, you can use milk chocolate, if the the mix starts to thin when you heat it, add a tablespoon of powdered sugar. Fourth you can use white chocolate although this is tricky and requres a lot of powered sugar to get it to "set" like a 3 to 5 tablespoons of powdered sugar. (With the coconut ones I mix in a 1/4 cup of grated coconut.) Ok, then the basic brownies, ooooh you'll never buy a box mix again. Then the flourless cakes, so rich, its incredible. On to the "Pots of Creame" Yum, you'll have people begging for more. The trick here is to use a pan to hold the pots in, put the pan with the pots in it in the oven, then add "boiling water" and cook for exactly 22 minutes. The centers will be smooth and look runny but they'll finish cooking as they cool. Also be very careful getting them out of the oven, hot water will go right through your oven mitts. I use a canning jar lifter to get the pots of creame out of the pan. But in any case please be careful the burn you could get is bad. I could go on and on, but if you can follow directions they all seem to come out fine.