Chocolate Bar: Recipes and Entertaining Ideas for Living the Sweet Life

Whether it's an intimate summer get-together with family and close friends or an extravagant gathering with many guests, entertaining can be a fun, rewarding experience but can also be quite a stressful endeavor too. What better way to entertain than with chocolate, that hypnotically addictive food that draws so many to its decadence. To assist with planning and preparing your get-together or party, we offer reviews of four popular, chocolate-based recipe and party planning books. Wine aficionados have long had wine tasting parties to select and test new vintages, and now, the same type of devotion has come to chocolate! Chocolate Bar is an innovative idea, opened in New York City, which is hailed as the grown-ups candy store, with chocolate tasting parties, chocolate drinks, and more, bringing some of the world's finest chocolate delicacies and treats under one roof. Its creators have come together to offer this unique 191-page book with the same name. Not only is Chocolate Bar a guide to decadent chocolate creations, but it is truly an entertainer's guide to special and even unique chocolate products, including a chocolate body scrub, which is said to be very healthy for the skin. The focus of this book is not necessarily on the recipes or creations themselves, but more on how to throw special entertainment functions such as chocolate tasting parties, chocolate martini soirees, and even hot fudge and chocolate sundae parties for a blast back into childhood days. Chocolate Bar contains helpful information, amusing anecdotes and sidebars, and has a witty conversational tone that keeps the reader engaged while also offering ideas and insights into how the chocolate lover can explore the more indulgent side of chocolate and entertain their chocolate loving friends with the unique ideas inspired by this book. Chocolate Zoom Magazine www.chocolatezoom.com

From snazzy photos and classy layout to text right on the mark, CHOCOLATE BAR is a top notch production from cover to cover. Even more impressive, the chocolate recipes are pure sin--but I doubt that anyone will repent after the first bite. Or the twentieth... Expect your mouth to water and your palate to yearn. This is the one, oh fellow chocolate aficionados. This book was written for ---US---!

This a great combination coffee table book/cookbook. I bought a copy for myself and have made the peanut butter cupcakes (delish and ended up looking exactly as they do in the photo), as well as the red velvet cake which my mid-Westerner boyfriend devoured. I also picked up a copy for my best friend's birthday. She's not as experienced in baking as I am, but she found the recipes easy to follow, and the drink recipes mouth-wateringly luscious. As a design-freak, I love the graphic design and the photos. They authors also give great advice about presentation for all of the recipes-something that is oft overlooked. And hey, who doesn't like chocolate?

I have a very large cookbook collection and was amused to add this unique title to my bookshelf. This is not your typical chocolate book, it contains tougne in cheek ideas on how to throw a chocolate tasting (both funny and helpful), sly sidebars, and tips on how to accentuate any party with chocolate (these authors are obsessed). The portraits of both the people and the food are coffee-tablesque and amusing. Finally, the recipes are arranged into classic, retro, swank and future categories with both your tried and true (delicious brownies) to your truly odd (chocolate gelatin). Everything I have made so far has been perfect and I have several requests for copies of both the hot chocolate and the spiced chocolate oatmeal cookies.

I love baking and own A LOT of cookbooks. Chocolate Bar stands out on my shelf because the recipes are fantastic. I'm more than a little intimitated by their mole recipe and the towering cake but others like the pudding, brownies, gelatin (who knew?), RED VELVET!!!, fudge, and the awe-inspiring chocolate cake will soon be dog eared and smudged. Perfect and delicious. Not sure how I feel about the body scrub--why waste chocolate if you're not going to eat it? This book has your standards--cookies, brownies, cakes, history of chocolate, kitchen supplies--but a really nice touch is the party ideas. I love fondue and the authors' idea for a fondue party would be a great thing to do this winter. On a final note--the photos. What's great about these are they show the way the food will really look--crumbly, gooey, and lopsided. The people shots are a nice touch, too.