Chocolate

Chocolate by Paule Cuvetier is a two-volume set that comes in the matching case. The set includes The History of Chocolate and The Taste of Chocolate. I highly recommend reading about the history of chocolate first because once you see the recipes and the tantalizing pictures, the history just fades into the past.

The History of Chocolate takes you back in time to 1519, when the French used cocoa as a form of money and in beauty products. What could be better - spending it and slathering it all over your body? On a step-by-step journey, you are taken through chocolate processing, from the cocoa bean to the tasty temptress that it becomes.

As you open The Taste of Chocolate, the photographs taunt your taste buds, and the recipes will make your mouth water. You are guided on a country-by-country tour around the world as the book explains the types of cocoa bean that is grown there, the qualities of it, and the best culinary uses for it.

After the chocolate-filled tour of the world, recipes are abundant. From the Chocolate Rum Sponge Cake to the Ganache filled Truffles, these recipes will send you into the kitchen for a cooking frenzy of chocolate delight.

This is would make the perfect gift for any chocolate lover - a truly elegant set that is worth every penny with recipes that would put any cookbook to shame. However, there is one downside to the set. The measurements are in both Metric and U.S. customary measurements, but they do not match up just right. I would highly recommend using just the metric version of the recipes.

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