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The first taste of real craft chocolate is intoxicating and for many ignites a passion that has to be followed and shared. This is certainly the case for many artists, chefs, historians, scientists, novelists, and chocolate aficionados who’ve made it their mission to to better understand the depth of flavor, memory, industry, and culture surrounding the cacao bean. Part of the reason is the secrecy surrounding the industry, from proprietary recipes and fortunes which trace their origins to chocolate, to the often dark history and ecological destruction which haunts the industry’s past, many would-be authors find the industry close to impenetrable from the outside. Nonetheless, the industry’s secrets have slowly been pried open and written down, its history recorded and unearthed from colonial-era archives, and recipes collected, and stories told in the books below.
The Secret Life of Chocolate, by Marcos Patchett
The history of chocolate can be divided into the “before” and the “after”. This comprehensive (and comprehensive truly is the right word at 700 pages!) book by Marcos Patchett is the definitive history of the “before,” the history of “old-school chocolate; pre-Columbian, Central American, bitter-spicy-foamy-intense blow-your-socks-off chocolate” without the European incorporation of milk, sugar, and spices. It is the five thousand years of indigenous use, full of the rich, complex, potent and dark (in every sense- think blood sacrifices) history of Old World Chocolate.
Everything Chocolate by America’s Test Kitchen
If you only ever buy one chocolate cookbook, make it this one. America’s Test Kitchen has the best name in recipes for a reason. As the name implies their recipes are rigorously and scientifically tested and if the recipe does not turn out great it’s probably because you did it wrong. This is their first ever chocolate cookbook with over 200 recipes ranging from the decedent and difficult (white chocolate-pink peppercorn panna cotta) to the best possible and still dead simple version of Mississippi Mud Pie and no-bake bars.
Cocoa, by Dr. Kristy Liessle
Most writing on chocolate revolves around Latin America’s cacao history and the European industry and chocolate houses which spread the fruit around the world. Africa is often ignored, despite producing more than two thirds of the world’s cacao. Liessle’s book is a step towards changing that imbalance. Cocoa takes the reader across West Africa’s five million cocoa farmers and the working family farms at an often subsistence level. From the farm, Leissle traces the cocoa production chain through to mass production chocolate factories and ultimately onto supermarket shelves.
Discover Chocolate, by Clay Gordon
The intro to Discover Chocolate starts with a simple but inspiring message: “You, Too, Can Become a Chocolate Critic.” From this starting point, chocolate writer Clay Gordon guides the reader through finding their tasting zones, buying the best craft chocolate, and pairing it with wines, spirits, and cheeses, fruit and more, detailing the classic and emerging flavor combinations any chocolate lover should try.
Grandpa Cacao by Elizabeth Zunon
This is a book for young children, where a little girl listens to her Daddy tell the story of her Grandpa Cacao while they bake a chocolate cake together. Grandpa Cacao was a farmer from the Ivory Coast in West Africa in a land where elephants roam and the air is hot and damp, and the book is a beautifully illustrated story of love, family, memory, and of course, chocolate for any little chocolate lover in your life.
Bean to Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution by Megan Giller
If you are just starting your craft chocolate journey, this is the book to buy. It is an easy-to-read educational guide on what to look for in a great craft chocolate bar and how to successfully pair chocolate with coffee, beer, spirits, cheese, or bread. It busts persistent myths (like “white chocolate isn’t chocolate”) and walks the reader through the growing and chocolate-making process before finishing with recipes from world famous chefs incorporating craft chocolate into unforgettable desserts.
The Art and Craft of Chocolate by Nathan Hodge
Consider this the beginner’s guide to craft chocolate. At 160 pages it is a quick but comprehensive read that begins with the cacao tree and the Mesoamerican history of chocolate, and those same Mesoamerican descendants who still farm the fruit for chocolate today. Nathan Hodge, the famous chocolatier and founder of Raaka Chocolate, walks you step-by-step on how to make your own craft chocolate, interspersed with his own funny faux-pas stories as he learned the ropes himself, using the tools you have in your own kitchen. With traditional Mexican moles, Mayan chocolate drinks and cocoa meat rubs recipes as a bonus, it is a great starting read for anyone looking deeper into the world of craft chocolate.
The Chocolate Connoisseur: For Everyone With a Passion for Chocolate by Chloe Doutre-Roussel
This is a light and fun read by a former professional chocolate buyer that walks the reader through the complexities of making and tasting the world’s finest chocolate like a true connoisseur- even if you’re not up for the task of eating a pound more more(!) of chocolate every day like the author claims she does.
120 Hot Chocolate Recipes by Bonnie Scott
Do you like hot chocolate? Do you really like hot chocolate? Then this book is for you. The title says it all with regional, flavored, alcoholic, vegan, frozen, and even slow cooker hot chocolate recipes waiting to be tried, all topped off with 20 whipped cream variation recipes.
The newly awarded bars have seen a rise in the use of Indian cacao, notably from the Idukki region of Kerala, with its ideal cacao growing conditions.
Read more +
Raising The Bar by Pam Williams & Jim Eber
This four-part book walks through the world of craft chocolate, starting with the genetics of chocolate and the efforts of scientists to fight the spread of boring and disease-susceptible monocultures, to the farming and fermentation process which gives craft chocolate it’s flavor edge, through the art and science of making the chocolate which in part four is ready to be eaten and loved.
Making Chocolate by Dandelion Chocolate
This is one of the rare coffee table books that manages to be simultaneously useful and beautiful. Dandelion Chocolate, an award winning bean-to-bar maker in San Francisco, opens up their vault of trade secrets in one of the best books on bean to bar chocolate making ever released. It explains the history, process, ingredients, sourcing, business relationships and recipes, with each of the four authors contributing their own hilarious anecdotes throughout. And of course, the gorgeous pictures alone make this book downright mouthwatering.
Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love by Simran Sethi
This book is not only about chocolate, it is nonetheless an essential read. It is a captivating read about Ecuadorian cocoa plantations, Ethiopian coffee forests, English food laboratories, viticulture, and the anatomy of an octopus, and how all of that combines to bring the us the food on our table today- and how that might not be such a good thing after all.
Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury
This book is decidedly NOT about craft chocolate- in fact it is about the opposite. It is written by a member of one of the great chocolate houses (and fortunes) of the world and tells the story of the entrepreneurs, eccentrics, and visionaries of the Nestlé, Cadbury, and Lindt families squaring off against their Hershey, and Mars family competitors in the United States who made big chocolate the globe-spanning champion of chocolate that it is today.
The newly awarded bars have seen a rise in the use of Indian cacao, notably from the Idukki region of Kerala, with its ideal cacao growing conditions.
Read more +
The newly awarded bars have seen a rise in the use of Indian cacao, notably from the Idukki region of Kerala, with its ideal cacao growing conditions.
Read more +
The newly awarded bars have seen a rise in the use of Indian cacao, notably from the Idukki region of Kerala, with its ideal cacao growing conditions.
Read more +
Keep up-to-date on upcoming chocolate awards
