Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts

by Maida Heatter

Chocoholics rejoice! Heatter's perennial favorite has everything for the chocolate-loving cook--cakes, cookies, pies, puddings and more. Each recipe is precisely detailed, and Heatter provides valuable advice on cooking techniques, ingredients and equipment.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference

428 pages, Paperback

First published August 12, 1980

About the author

Maida Heatter was an American pastry chef and cookbook author who specialized in baking and desserts. Heatter's cookbooks have been the recipient of three James Beard Foundation Awards, and she herself was inducted into the Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America in 1988. She was also inducted into the Chocolatier Magazine Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Sandra]

Fun to read about chocolate. She is an expert. Several recipes for flourless chocolate cake, which we are quite fond of. They have turned out yummy

[Andrea]

Although many of her books are out of print, there is no peer to the queen of desserts. Her recipes are the few i will try out on guests for the first time round. She is marvelously detailed and instructive on how to prep, how to store, whats good to ship and what NOT to do.

If you are uncomfortable with baking, she gives confidence.

[S Vanorse]

Chocolate Angle Pie, to die for!

[Alexia]

In case we forget what's really important.

[Susan]

This is one of my favorite Maida Heatter baking books and I have made most of these recipes. Many are my favorite desserts of all. One cannot go wrong with this baking book.

[Zainab]

Good

[Megan]

highly recommend the west coast brownies if you want a cakier brownie that's full of chocolate and nuts.

[Eleanor]

It's kind of silly to add a cook book to a book list but if any one deserves it, it's this one. Maida Heatter is the queen of chocolate desserts. Though a bit dated (there are no pictures of finished products) the language in this book is very mature and assumes you are capable of making your own decisions about what recipe is worthy or what taste and texture you want. Unlike other cookbooks, Heatter never says "You'll love it" or "trust me" or "something you'll make again and again", but instead tells you about her experience with a dessert's popularity, the specific flavor or texture of a dessert, or at most gives you her own opinion about a dessert's greatness.

I've made her one recipe for chocolate ice cream that doesn't require an ice cream churn- it tastes like cold chocolate whipped cream- and I love it! I've also made the Icebox mexican chocolate cookies as well as her classic brownies. Each one has been a big hit. For chocolate-lovers, this is a kind of bible.

[Catherine Woodman]

This is my first cookie cookbook--and where I found out that it might have been over kill to buy 1000 sheets of parchment paper--when she notes in here that it took her a decade to go through her box that size--and she is a professional! Well, I have had mine over a decade, and while I am not nearly done with it, I have no regrets.

[Kimberly Francisco]

Chocolate chip cookies get my seal of approval *thumbs up*

[Catherine Woodman]

There is a nut cake in here that I make with some regularity and it was one of the first of it's kind dessert cookbooks--she was doing this long before it was popular :-)