Regional library offers tasty booklist

Chocolate is probably the world’s most loved treat. It marks our holidays: Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and celebrations such as Halloween. Here are some books to satisfy your craving, providing you make the recipes. The booklist provides readers with names of books recommended by the staff of the Western Counties Regional Library. All books recommended by the staff are posted at www.westerncounties.ca under recommended reading with links to the library’s catalogue. Book summaries are supplied by the library:

125 Best Chocolate Chip Recipes

by Julie Hasson

Here are 125 Best Chocolate Chip Recipes, featuring superb, imaginative and fail-safe recipes for cookies, cakes, pies, breads, puddings, bars and squares, muffins, hot and cold beverages and extraordinary sauces.

Chocolate Obsession: Confections and Treats to Create and Savor

by Michael Recchiuti

It’s Chemistry 101 all over again. But never have science textbooks featured close-to-three-dimensional photographs (courtesy of pro Maren Caruso), such an elegant array of recipes (more than 60), and ideas and flavors that will bowl over every reader. Yet consider that the main author is Michael Recchiuti, a San Franciscan called the Picasso of chocolatiers, and that his cohort, Fran Gage, once owned a locally esteemed patisserie and now writes for national gourmet-type publications. That combination of expertise creates a beyond-the-novice collection of both recipes and information that chocoholic bakers will be hard-pressed to do without.

Chocolate Sensations: Over 200 Easy-to-make Recipes

by Reader’s Digest Association

This cookbook is a chocolate-lover’s dream, with over 200 delectable ways to serve what the Aztec Indians called the “food of the gods.” Whether you crave chocolate cakes, cookies, pastries, or brownies, you'll find pages and pages bursting with chocolate-based treats. Each recipe features preparation and baking times, and step-by-step instructions.

Pure Chocolate

by Fran Bigelow

The most stylish, approachable, and mouthwatering chocolate cookbook ever, Pure Chocolate guides the serious chocolate aficionado in the creation of 75 delectable desserts and confections, from the simple yet sublime to extravagant showstoppers. The book includes more than 44 colour photos.

100% Chocolate: The Saga of Chocolate, With 40 Gourmet Recipes

by Katherine Khodorowsky

Dedicated to fanatical chocolate lovers and those of us who are a little more restrained in our interest, here is the perfect companion and guide for appreciating this delightful and ever-popular treat to the fullest. Since its discovery by the conquistadors in the Americas and subsequent introduction into Europe in the 17th century, chocolate has become an important component of culinary and social culture throughout the Western world. This beautifully illustrated and designed history offers insights into this phenomenon and includes 40 carefully selected gourmet chocolate recipes.

Chock Full of Chocolate

by Elizabeth MacLeod

From a polka-dot pie that’s perfect for a party to a silly salami you can eat for dessert, this book is choc-a-block with more than 45 tasty chocolate recipes. Includes Quick Treats, delicious chocolate ideas kids can prepare in minutes, or even seconds! Kids can make: triple chocolate cookies, cool shakes, s’more gorp, candy-covered pizza, dirt dessert.