Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook Hardcover – Illustrated, October 22, 2013

Just received this beautiful book yesterday. Everything looks soooo good I can't decide which recipe to try first! The photos will make you absolutely drool. Although there are some very advanced recipes, many of the recipes are simple enough for the novice cook. There are many with just four or five ingredients. And every single recipe page has a delectable photo.As for the book itself, this will make a terrific coffee table book, it's simply stunning. Therein speak the Mast brothers with history of those slippery beans, lots of tips and a great section on tempering chocolate. There's also a metric to US conversion table in the back for those of you across the pond.So which recipe to try first? Make your own chocolate syrup (uses real chocolate, not just "chocolate flavor"). The chocolate beet cake looks yummy. They have thier own take on Ne$tle Crunch bars and turn Rice Cripsy Treats to a chocolate lovers delight, and both are quite simple to take on. Can't wait to get started!

I never write book reviews (this is actually my first), but after receiving this book, I felt everyone possible needed to know how truly amazing this book is. I have hundreds of cookbooks and it isn't very often that I can remember truly being overjoyed as soon as the cover was opened. Then I couldn't put it down until I read it from cover to cover. The book is what every other cookbook should aspire to be. It is a work of art. From the writing, to the photography, the styling, even down to the font used and quality and thickness of the pages. I am debating ordering a second one. A display copy and a copy I keep in the kitchen. It made me want to immediately get into the kitchen and do something with chocolate. It is an inspiring book and I hope others use it as a guide and standard for what a cookbook or any other book should be. I can't believe it didn't cost double what I paid. It is worth much more.

The Mast Brothers Chocolate has several sides to it. It tells a story of the brothers life coming up, goes into how they came to making chocolate, then you have the recipes. In this book, the stories, the pictures, and the ingredients are pretty interesting, not to mention the techniques you have to use are very cool also. On the flip side if you aren't a baker, and if you don't know how to improvise if something doesn't seem right, then don't waste your money, there are so many other good books to be purchased. The recipes which are the biggest reason why I purchased this book, are a very big letdown.I love to bake, I have made all sorts of things in my life, when I got this book, I saw things that really sparked my interest. The fact that the Mast brothers don't just use chocolate chips, rather take whole chocolate bars and chop them up, was pretty cool to me. However the lack of explanation and directions in the majority of the recipes can make you feel lost. Also its makes you lose a lot of time in researching from other resources if you are doing something right. Take the chocolate roll recipe, if you research any other chocolate roll or cake roll recipe, you receive so much more instruction than, "whisk eggs and granulated sugar until fluffy." That recipe was a complete and utter fail. The recipe for the chocolate cake with the sour cream frosting could not have been tested multiple times, the sour cream frosting was flat, you would've needed to add a lot to it to get proper peaks and look good.Now there are a few recipes that are good, the Dark and Stormy Cake was good, I always like making it, though the adding of the baking soda to the badder after everything has been mixed was weird, but it did work. Unfortunately the chocolate frosting they suggest to put on it, I didn't do it. The cost of buying that much chocolate to use for that cake was to expensive for my taste. I like the fact they have you do different things with chocolate like how they tell you to make the drinking chocolate and their take on a traditional hot chocolate. The use of fresh ginger that is grated into their mixtures adds really nice spice and flavor.Overall this book looks great, but the recipes aren't good enough for the money. The cost of this book to go along with all the accolades the brothers have received you would expect so much more. However if you are feeling adventurous and want to do extra research before making these recipes, then go for it.

This is one of the prettiest books in my collection. The photos are beautiful; the recipes are totally do-able and beautifully presented. I just received it today, at work, and several people have been admiring it and discovering the Mast Brothers.This is a book, too, about quality and success in life. Sprinkled between groups of recipes are wonderful stories and photos that not only speak of their principles which have contributed to their personal and professional success, but also give us some great scoop about procurement of from-scratch chocolate. As they mention...it's pretty much the world's favorite food, but we don't know much about it.I've written this today on the basis of several sneak peeks at my cube: I'm positive I will have much more to say once I've taken the book home, sampled the recipes, and read the stories in depth. This book is a keeper...this I already know for sure.

I expected more of desert recipes. I tried some of them and they are very good. I am not certain about the main courses and hearty dishes with the chocolate.They maybe just great.