Chocolate Desserts

In their second collaboration, the award-winning duo of Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan unveil the secrets of sumptuous chocolate desserts. In these pages you will find a dazzlingly delicious collection of recipes, all featuring the world's most intoxicating ingredient: chocolate. If there is a secret to the sensuality of Pierre Herme's desserts, it just may be his intricate refinement of taste, texture, and temperature. Surely, this is what makes all of his desserts such a pleasure to eat. Here you will find the simplest chocolate truffle-Black-on-Black Truffles, bite-size balls of bittersweet ganache tossed in dark cocoa-as well as the luxuriously soft and rich Suzy's Cake, which is spectacularly delicious yet quite simple to make. Chic desserts, such as the Triple Creme-individual ramekins layered with espresso creme brieche, rich chocolate cream, and pure unsweetened whipped cream-or a cup of French-style hot chocolate, or a gateau de resistance, such as Plaisir Sucre, will be the triumphant end to any meal or the centerpiece for any celebration. Through these more than seventy-five recipes, you will have the many pleasures of tasting chocolate in all its states-hot and cold, creamy and crunchy, smooth and custardy, thick and chewy, bittersweet and sweet, dark, milk, and white. Whether you are an expert in the dessert kitchen or a beginner with a desire for the delicious, this collection will introduce you to the myriad delights of Pierre Herme's desserts, his unusual juxtapositions of ingredients, his conjurer's touch with textures, and his always perfect pitch when it comes to sweetness, tartness, and chocolatey-ness. Finally, there are the indispensable Base Recipes and a Dictionary of Terms, Techniques, Equipment, and Ingredients. Together they form a complete course in chocolate dessert artistry. Each recipe has been written with the American kitchen in mind, so that everyone with a passion for the richness of chocolate desserts can now enjoy Pierre Herme's sublime creations at home.