Book Review: The Chocolate Spoon | The Chocolate Professor

The Chocolate Spoon, Italian Sweets From the Silver Spoon, released September 6, 2023 has a tag line: ‘A masterclass in baking and working with chocolate the Italian way.’ It’s the latest offering from legendary The Silver Spoon Kitchen, a 344-page encyclopedia that focuses on all-chocolate recipes, including recipes utilizing dark, milk, white and ruby chocolate.

Readers may be familiar with original The Silver Spoon cookbook from 1950, a culinary classic about Italian home cooking. Recipes include classics, but often with a twist such as Cinnamon Cannoli with Ganache and Cocoa Beans, Dulce de Leche Brownies, Chocolate Amaretti Pudding, White Chocolate and Passion Fruit Mousse Cake, Hot Chocolate with Coconut & Cinnamon, Pear & Chocolate Crumble, and Triple Chocolate Cake. While not all the recipes may sound classically Italian, many do use traditional Italian ingredients and flavors.

Who’s It For?

The Chocolate Spoon chocolate and strawberry cake recipe

Written for cooks and bakers across the globe, each recipe in The Chocolate Spoon incorporates metric and Imperial units (used in the U.S.). Fahrenheit vs. Celsius temperatures are included plus gas mark units - a temperature scale for gas ovens in the U.K., Ireland, and some additional countries. Meticulously crafted instructions and photographs illustrate each recipe.

The authors leave nothing to chance. Recipes include preparation times versus cooking times, with ingredients and equipment listed in order of use. Many recipes also feature a final tip designed to help readers save time, make a difficult step easier, or suggest how to avoid the most common errors when creating each dish.

Every recipe also includes an assessment of difficulty. Several dozen, each, are labeled easy or average, with approximately two dozen considered ‘difficult.’ Every recipe also includes the required pan size, and most also feature beautiful photos that depict both the outer and inner texture of a finished dish.

The Chocolate Spoon. Italian Sweets from the Silver Spoon. The SilverSpoon Kitchen. Phaidon

Want to learn how to temper chocolate? It’s in here. Curious about making bonbons and candies, plus 3-D decorations, curls, shards, and bars? There are instructions for each one. Additional recipes describe how to make mousses, crèmes, ganache, and chocolate beverages.

Beyond Just Recipes

But there’s much more to this book than 100 terrific chocolate recipes. Chocolate lovers will find fascinating information about this beloved “food of the gods” – from its importance in Aztec culture to its European evolution. Another section, The Cocoa Tree and Its Fruits, does a great job of recounting the transition from cacao to chocolate. Composition and Types of Chocolate describes the function and importance of sugar, soy lecithin, and vanilla in chocolate making, plus cacao percentages found in Italian chocolate.

Kitchen prep is another key focus. Getting Started describes recommended kitchen equipment. For instance, Weighing and Measuring notes the importance of digital weighing scales, plus measuring cups, pitchers, and spoons. Electric mixers, whisks (hand or electric), and immersion blenders are considered essential tools, as are chocolate graters, vegetable peelers, digital kitchen thermometers, and flexible spatulas.

According to the authors, Shaping and Baking requires baking sheets/pans/molds and pastry and cookie cutters, plus silicone or polycarbonate molds to piping bags. You’ll learn everything you need to know about sifting, mixing, whipping, and whisking, in the For the Best Results section.

Step-by-Step Techniques is the final section before the primary recipes. This is where you’ll learn important primary skills such as tempering chocolate, enrobing, or creating chocolate modeling paste. Photos of each step are a big help, and individual recipes refer readers back to Step-by-Step Techniques that will enhance creation of each dessert.

Learn more invaluable prepping techniques in the Basic Recipes section. It covers how to make shortcrust and other pastry dough as well as crumble mix, and sponges. Additional instructions cover preparation of Italian or French meringue, plus pastry cream and Crème Anglais. The Glossary is another great resource, with dozens of descriptions for everything from agar agar and blind baking to caramel or gelatin.

This is the latest book chocolate lovers have been waiting for. The Chocolate Spoon is a must-have for home bakers and wannabe pastry chefs, with plenty of technical expertise and inspiration for years to come.

Chocolate and Pistachio Vertical Cake Recipe

Chocolate and Pistachio Vertical Cake photo credit Luca Colombo at Studio XL

Adapted from The Chocolate Spoon by The Silver Spoon Kitchen

Phaidon, US $49.95, 2023

Preparation time: 1 hour, plus 5 hours resting time

Difficulty: Advanced

Serves: 10

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE SAVOY SPONGE

- 4 ounces/1 stick/120 g unsalted butter

- 12 eggs

- 12 1⁄4 ounces/scant 1 2⁄3 cups/360 g superfine (caster) sugar

- Pinch of salt

- 8 3⁄4 ounces/1 cup/240 g self-rising (self-raising) flour

- 4 ounces/1 1⁄4 cups/120 g pistachio flour

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM

- 7 ounces/200 g 60% dark chocolate

- 7 ounces/1 3⁄4 sticks/200 g unsalted butter

- 14 ounces/3 1⁄4 cups/400 g confectioners’ (icing) sugar

- 7 fl oz/scant 1 cup/200 ml heavy (whipping) cream

FOR THE DECORATION

- 1 1⁄2 ounces/1⁄3 cup/40 g chopped pistachio nuts

- Chocolate Fans made with 60% dark chocolate

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

- 8 x 12-inch/20 × 30-cm rectangular baking pan (tin)

- Parchment paper

- Bain-marie or double boiler

- Stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment or electric whisk and bowl

- Strainer (sieve)

- Chef’s knife

- Chopping board

- Saucepan

- Mixing bowl

- Palette knife

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/160°C Fan/Gas 4 and line the baking pan (tin) with parchment paper.

Melt one-third of the butter in a bain-marie or double boiler. Break four of the eggs into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, or use a mixing bowl and electric whisk. Add one-third of the sugar and a pinch of salt to the bowl, and beat until very pale, and fluffy. Add one-third of the flour, sifted, one-third of the pistachio flour and the melted butter, and mix to combine.

Pour the batter into the baking pan, level the surface, and bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and invert the pan onto a sheet of parchment paper. Peel off the parchment from the sponge, so that it is no longer attached to it, and replace it back on top of the sponge. Starting with the short side of the sponge towards you, roll up the sponge while still warm, holding it sandwiched between the two sheets of parchment paper. Set aside to cool completely.

Repeat the process described above with the remaining ingredients to make two more sponge rectangles, but allow them to cool without rolling them up.

To make the buttercream, finely chop the chocolate. Place the butter, confectioners’ (icing) sugar, cream, and chocolate in a saucepan and place over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted and the mixture is glossy and smooth. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool to room temperature, then chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour until it has the desired consistency for spreading.

Unroll the rolled-up sponge, remove the parchment paper, and use a palette knife to spread with a thin layer of buttercream. Roll up the sponge again, without using parchment paper. spread one of the two remaining sponge rectangles with buttercream and wrap it around the rolled sponge, starting at the outer edge, to create a larger roll. Repeat with the third rectangle, then stand the roll upright on a serving plate. Spread the entire surface of the cake with the remaining buttercream, and decorate, as desired, with the chopped pistachios and Chocolate Fans, and chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours before serving.

If you want to make a shorter cake, cut the sponge rectangles in half lengthwise.

TO MAKE THE CHOCOLATE FANS

INGREDIENTS

- 9 ounces/250 g dark, milk, white, or ruby chocolate, tempered

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

- Ladle

- Marble board

- Metal spatula or palette knife Small round pastry cutter

DIRECTIONS

Pour the tempered chocolate onto a clean, dry marble board to facilitate the cooling process.

Use a metal spatula to spread the chocolate out to a thickness of 1⁄8 inch/3 mm and continue to work it with the spatula until it has almost completely set and the surface of the chocolate becomes matt and even.

To make fans, start at the edge of the chocolate rectangle and use the spatula held at a 45-degree angle to shave off a strip of chocolate, while rotating the spatula outwards.

Use a small round pastry cutter to make chocolate curls by tilting the cutter at a 45-degree angle to the work surface and scraping it along the surface of the chocolate, forming thin curls on the inside edge of the cutter.

To make chocolate cigarette curls, hold the metal spatula at a 10-degree angle to the work surface and push it along the underside of the chocolate so it rolls up to form wide, compact curls.

For thin shavings, hold the spatula at a 10-degree angle to the work surface and scrape the chocolate more superficially than for cigarette curls.

VARIATION

There is a much simpler way to prepare chocolate curls for use in decorating cakes and frozen desserts, although it is less versatile. Place a block of chocolate kept at room temperature on a clean, dry chopping board. Hold it steady with one hand, and quickly shave the top of the block with a wide-mouth vegetable peeler held with the other hand.