Product Description

In this scrumptious collection, revered chef Marcel Desaulniers serves up some of his most sinful, most seductive chocolate creations ever. An astonishing array of chocolate lovers from the "guru of ganache".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #367684 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 228 pages

From Amazon.com
No doubt about it: chocolate rules. Celebrating this happy fact is Marcel Desaulniers's Death by Chocolate Cakes, another installment in his bestselling Death by Chocolate series. These books bring chocolate sweets to, well, heart-stopping heights. Cake, which contains 50 or so recipes for goodies such as Chocolate Heart of Darkness Cakes (dense chocolate cupcakes with a molten chocolate-truffle center) and Excessively Expressive Espresso Fantasy (chocolate ganache-filled chocolate espresso cake topped with espresso mousse), also includes formulas for chocolate ice creams, drinks, and sauces--all in all a true debauch. Though its recipes are painstakingly written and easy to follow, most require multiple, technically exacting preparations; aside from chocolate voyeurs, they'll be of greatest interest to reasonably skilled bakers with time to spare.

Desaulniers divides his recipes into chapters such as "Baby Cakes," "Mom's Cakes," "Celebration Cakes," and "Sky-High Cakes." This portioning is somewhat arbitrary as the drill is usually a lusciously filled and topped layer cake. Delicious exceptions include My Little Kumquat Cake and Uncle Sam's in the Black Cake. If Desaulniers is given to a jokey cuteness (as evidenced by the above recipe titles), and neglects sometimes to describe his cakes so readers can make informed baking choices, he is careful to provide illuminating tips on equipment and techniques throughout. With 50 mouth-watering color photos, the book should bring great pleasure to all chocolate lovers, on the page and at meal's end. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
The chef of the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, Va., Desaulniers (Death by Chocolate) offers 50 extravagant, elaborate, indulgent chocolate cakes. These are not treats for the kitchen shy, requiring as they do many phases and, within each phase, many steps. But the outcome is so luscious and Desaulniers is so charming and persuasive, it's hard to believe it's not time well invested. Sprinkled liberally throughout are anecdotes about the author's mother, his childhood and various recipe contributors, who include friends and family members, fellow pastry chefs and their relations. There are cakes served at the Trellis as well as recipes handed down from generation to generation and those discovered "on the road." Recipes for adorable baby cakes, whose size belie the intensity of their flavor, include Heart of Darkness Cakes, in which bakers are instructed to "remove the muffin tin from the oven and, moving quickly, place a single frozen truffle in the center of each portion of cake batter." Chocolate Chunk Cookie Cakes meet the demand for a tasty confection that can withstand the indignity of being plopped in a lunch box. There are also big event cakesAamong them, Julia's [Child] Eighty-fifth Birthday CakeAas well as cakes from out of town, such as The King's Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bourbon Cake, based on Elvis's favorite sandwich. The book concludes with an assortment of accompaniments, such as instructions for chocolate honey and a recipe for a wicked cocktail called Chocolate Temptress (think vodka and Frangelico). Many of these confections go over the top, but chocoholics will eagerly follow Desaulniers wherever he leads. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Like most of his earlier titles (Desserts To Die For, Death by Chocolate Cookies, etc.), Desaulniers's eighth cookbook features indulgent showstoppers, from Happy All the Time Cakes to Excessively Expressive Espresso Ecstasy, each one shown in a full-page color photograph. Although many of the recipes are complicated, instructions are detailed and clear; there are no headnotes per se to introduce these creations, but "The Chef's Touch" section at the end of each recipe provides tips and some background. Desaulniers's extravagant sweets have many fans; recommended for most collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The most luscious cakes you'll ever taste!
Marcel Desaulniers is the most consistently amazing dessert cookbook author I've ever come across. Take, for example, Martha's Chocolate Freckles Fresh Blueberry Ice Cream Cake. It's based in a "Chocolate Freckles Cake," which is a non-chocolate cake with finely-chopped or grated chocolate mixed into the batter. A homemade blueberry ice cream fills the space between the layers - this is honestly one of the best ice creams I've ever had, with a tart flavor created by the sour cream, cream cheese, and lemon juice. The topping is sweetened, vanilla-flavored whipped cream, and further fresh blueberries are ringed around the top.

Next we made Marcel's First Birthday Chocolate High and Fluffy-on-Top Cake. This is a chocolate cake with a vanilla frosting. It sounds so simple, but it's so delightful! This is truly the ultimate icing: sweet, not too buttery, and remarkably fluffy. I have never had such a fantastic icing before, and intend to use it on cake after cake in the future.

You'll find everything in here from Chocolate Rocky Road, to Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake, Chocolate Caraway On-the-Rocks Trifles, Chocolate-Dipped Orange Fry Cakes with Coffee and Cream, Uncle Sam's in the Black Cake (with a toasted oatmeal raising topping), Chocolate Tender Passion, and much more! Each recipe comes with a gorgeous picture. The recipes are inventive and of consistently excellent quality; the directions are thorough without being labyrinthine. They're several pages long for each recipe, but I never feel lost. Marcel repeats the amounts of the ingredients in the instructions so you don't have to flip back and forth to the ingredient amounts.

You'll probably not want to get this book unless you have a stand mixer--the key to many of these delights is loooong mixing times, sometimes of stiff batters. Other than that, however, Marcel tries to limit himself to common household equipment and time-scales. In short, if you like to cook and love chocolate cakes, buy this cookbook!

Talk About "Have Your Cake!"
You won't find such creative stuff anywhere else, trust me, one who's a cookbook addict collector and searches many sources for great recipes. Marcel is truly creative and stand alone in his relentless search and publication of such collections, all geared not for restaurant or competition but for us home chefs. Ingredients, equipment and techniques are all tried and prepared with us in mind.

This volume on cakes is divided into five groupings: Baby cakes, Mom's cakes, Celebration cakes, out-of-state cakes, and sky-high cakes, with the common theme of chocolate. This guy really knows how to get to my sweet tooth, with nuts and fruit and decadent chocolate.

Try the likes of: "Chocolate Porto Enchantment Cake"; "Milk Chocolate Peach Pecan Upside Down Cake with Peach and Bourbon Ice Cream" or "Chocolate Mai Tai." Truly, there is too many good ones, but feast your tastebuds on: "Martha's Chocolate Frecles Fresh Blueberry Ice Cream Cake" "Chocolate Caraway On-The-Rock Trifles" "Chocolate Tender Passion"

As with each of his cookbook offerings, there is the super photos, Chef's Touch section with its fascinating background and prep and serving tips, and section on sources, ingredients and techniques, one especially awesome here is a Table of differing chocolate melting times using both double broiler and microwave methods.

This one does take the cake

Amazing!
I love this book! I've already made several cakes from it and, although they are time consuming, the results are fabulous! The directions are easy to follow and the stories are the icing on the cake. I went out and got the other books as well, and I'd recommend all of them to any chocolate lover out there.