A gorgeous professional-level guide to the most challenging form of the confectioner's art A showpiece created entirely from sugar is truly a work of art, and it takes an eye for design and strong pastry skills to work with this delicate medium. The Art of the Confectioner is the ultimate guide to working with sugar to create beautiful sugar and pastillage shapes, flowers, figurines, and breathtaking full-scale showpieces. Author and award-winning pastry chef Ewald Notter shares wisdom gained from more than 35 years in the pastry kitchen, and combines straightforward advice and step-by-step instructions with lessons on developing artistry and design skills. The book begins with a basic overview of sugar, including information on the equipment and ingredients needed to work with sugar and Isomalt. Subsequent chapters cover Pastillage, Sugar Casting, Sugar Pulling, Sugar Blowing, and New Trends in Sugarwork, and include detailed instructions on how to make everything from delicate flowers to whimsical blown sugar figurines. And the final chapter shows how readers can bring together all the skills learned throughout the book to create award-winning sugar and pastillage showpieces. From working with shapes and color and choosing a focus point to developing a sculpture based on a particular theme, Notter provides insights into all the tricks of the trade and expert advice on preparing for competitions. Throughout the book, techniques are explained with simple, step-by-step instructions and illustrated with clear how-to photos, while stunning showpiece beauty shots provide inspiration. The book includes hundreds of color photos as well as beautiful hand-painted watercolor illustrations by the author, and an Appendix of templates is provided to help readers replicate the showpieces shown throughout the book. For pastry students, aspiring confectioners, and professional pastry chefs looking to improve their skills for restaurant work or competition, The Art of the Confectioner is a must-have guide from one of the field's most well-known experts.

Chocolates & Confections, 2e offers a complete and thorough explanation of the ingredients, theories, techniques, and formulas needed to create every kind of chocolate and confection.Ê It is beautifully illustrated with 250 full-color photographs of ingredients, step-by-step techniques, and finished chocolates and confections.Ê From truffles, hard candies, brittles, toffee, caramels, and taffy to butter ganache confections, fondants, fudges, gummies, candied fruit, marshmallows, divinity, nougat, marzipan, gianduja, and rochers, Chocolates & Confections 2e offers the tools and techniques for professional mastery.

These three books by Francois Pierre de la Varenne (c. 1615-1678), who was chef to the Marquis d'Uxelles, are the most important French cookery books of the seventeenth century. It was the first French cookery book of any substance since Le Viandier almost 300 years before, and it ran to thirty editions in 75 years. The reason for its success was simply; it was the first book to record and embody the immense advances which French cooking had made, largely under the influence of Italy and the Renaissance, since the fifteenth century. Some characteristics of medieval cookery are still visible, but many have disappeared. New World ingredients make their entrance. A surprising number of recipes for dishes still made in modern times (omelettes, beignets, even pumpkin pie) are given. The watershed from medieval to modern times is being crossed under our eyes in La Varenne's pages. So important was this book that English cooks of the time immediately bought copies and one (anonymous) even translated it into English in the middle of the Puritan rule of Oliver Cromwell.

Features over one hundred color photographs, techniques, and recipes of chocolates and confections that can be made at home.

Beloved À la Mère de Famille confectioneries are a venerable Parisian institution. This, their first cookbook after more than 250 years in business, is as tempting and gorgeous as the shop's bewitching displays. With the edges of the book dyed a brilliant orange and a cover featuring an enchanting candy-shop window and richly embossed lettering, this is one of the most beautiful cookbooks you've ever seen. Inside, each of the 95 recipes for classic confections has been lovingly photographed. For the home candymaker always looking for new and better formulas—and for bakers of all skill levels—this is a complete collection of recipes for À la Mère de Famille favorites, from cakes to marshmallows to ice creams and more.