Does anyone own this book?

[Wendy DeBord]

It's written by Jean-Pierre Wybauw.

It's calling my name everytime I see it while shopping. I'm hoping to find opinions and details by someone who already owns it before I purchase. Thanks in advance.

[nightscotsman]

I haven't been able to check out a copy yet, but I plan to buy it anyway. Wybauw is extremely knowledgeable about chocolate and this looks to be his definitive book. JB Prince has it for $100 here.

[duckduck]

I've been wondering about that one too since I read about it in PA&D. If you end up buying it, tell us what you think.

[Lysbeth]

I purchased a copy of the book just before Christmas. Depending on what you are looking for, it may be a very useful book to have in your library. Let me know if there is anything specific you would like to know about and I'll see what I can tell you about it. Currently my friend has it, but I read it cover to cover over the Holidays!

[Moopheus]

We have it in our library, and a pastry chef who's been reading it told me the technical information is very good, but the English translations are not so good. I haven't had a chance to take more than a cursory look at it myself.

[Wendy DeBord]

Questions: How interesting is it (is it "Herme'" good?)? Does he cover any ground that's new, different, exciting? How does it compare to similar books? Do his forumulas look exciting, are they mainly traditional or are they more contemporary? How many pages is it? What are the chapters titled? What percentage of the book is formulas, does it contain alot of detailed photos? Is it all truffles or does he go into other candies?

I saw it for $120.00 some place else, so that's a good deal Neil! I was lucky to attend a demo with him and I'm very interested in owning this book.

[mckayinutah]

This book is also on my "wish" list, but I have a "fear" of sorts, of purchasing books that I haven't been able to flip through, either in a bookstore or in a library. This comes from getting books in the past that have come highly recommended, only to have them sit on my bookshelf collecting dust because they aren't exactly in the realm of what I was hoping.

Anyway, for those who have it or have seen it's insides, is it mostly composed of small chocolate stuff ( like what is shown in the lastes issue of PA&D ) or does it include other chocolate areas, such as showpieces, etc....?

Jason

[Lysbeth]

What I found particularly exciting about the book was that he talked a lot about the shelf life of chocolates. He talks about an "Aw" value (which I had never heard of) that designates how long you can keep a candy. He explains how he gets to that value and with each recipe the same value is mentioned. In addition he explains which ingredients help with shelf life.

If you are just making chocolates at home for fun, this may not interest you as much since they'll probably all be gone in no time. However, if you are getting into selling enrobed gananches etc. this will be of great interest.

As I mentioned, my friend currently has the book, but I remember that he talked about ingredients, troubleshooting enrobing and molding (with great pictures), viscosity, shelf life and then there are about 100 recipes.

If you go to http://www.chipsbooks.com/finechoc.htm you will find a more detailed look at the contents of the book and some nice pictures of the inside.

Each recipe has a beautiful up close colored picture of the finished candy and throughout the book there are many other pictures to illustrate his ideas. True, I too have found some issues with the translation, but it didn't seem too bad, like with Roger Geerts book (Belgian Chocolates.) Then again, Dutch is my first language, so I might have overlooked some of the idiosyncrasies that you might pick up.

I found it was a $100 well spent on my part, but if you are not planning on working with chocolate on a commercial or daily basis, or teaching it, it might be too much. Unless, of course, you just want to know all there is to know and can't help but stay up late each night and read cookbooks....

All in all it is a great book with much new information in it that I have not seen documented anywhere else.

[Lysbeth]

Oh yeah, Jason, there is nothing about showpieces in this book.

[mckayinutah]

Oh yeah, Jason, there is nothing about showpieces in this book.

←

Thank you Lysbeth

Take care,

Jason

[Sebastian]

Aw refers to what's known as the 'water activity' of a product. It's a measure of how 'available' the moisture is in your product, measured on a scale of 0-1. 1 means the water is fully available, and it will be very easy for critters (molds, bacteria) to grow. Essentially for a shelf stable product you're going to want to shoot for an Aw less than 0.6. Most folks don't have the equipment required to measure this, however, and you probably have a good sense of how long you can keep something you make before it goes bad...

[pattyc]

I took a class with Wybauw this past November and his book arrived on our last day of class, which we all promptly purchased, after he was kind enough to autograph them for us. We paid him directly by cash/check and our cost was $77.00, and when I mentioned that I was used to paying over a hundred dollars for most of my books on chocolate, he responded that his intent was to keep it affordable so that more people would be able to buy it. I'm sure he would be surprised to see how much more it is being sold for in the States. He said that his reason for writing the book was that he gets many calls while working for Callebaut that are all very similar, so he felt it important that his answers and information on the hows and whys of chocolate be in print since he knew they were common questions. He said that it was not his idea to include recipes in a book that he envisioned to cover the more technical aspects of chocolate, but that the publisher felt the recipes should be added.

His book covers technical aspects of the ingredients used in chocolate and their characteristics: cocoa, milk products, nuts, fats, sugars, other sweeteners, additives, thickeners and whipping agents, spice mixtures, flavours. There is a chapter on chocolate processing: precrystallising, over/under crystallising, temperature, cooling, undesireable defects and what can be done. One chapter is devoted to shelf life and factors that extend shelf life and is very comprehensive. He included a chapter on sugar: boiling, sugar syrups, Brix conversion, recognizing cooking points. He includes a chapter on tools and advanced equipment for working with chocolate, candying fruits and vegetables, liqueur chocolates, caramel syrups and creams, fondant, fudge, sugar panning, flavours in caramel creams. That would be the first 82 pages of the book, and the remaining 146 contain beautiful photographs of chocolates, as well as recipes covering pralines, caramels, nougat, ganaches, fruit in liqueur chocolates, marzipan, truffles, and fruit dough. The information is invaluable and not in many other books on chocolate, and the photographic images are amazing.

[nightscotsman]

Excellent! Thanks so much for the details on the book, patty. I will definitely have to pick it up soon. My boss said he bought the book at the Chef Rubber retail outlet here in Vegas.

[Wendy DeBord]

Excellent! Thanks so much for the details on the book, patty.

Ditto!