Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts

By Alice Medrich

James Beard Foundation 1991 Cookbook of the Year!
"Cocolat is to chocolate what Tiffany is to diamonds." — Gourmet magazine.
One of America's leading chocolatiers and the founder of the famous Cocolat shops shares the secrets behind her decadent, European-style desserts in this beautifully illustrated, easy-to-follow guide. Alice Medrich founded the first in a chain of chocolate shops in 1976, introducing legions of Americans to the joys of chocolate truffles. With the guidance of this lavish book, home cooks and budding pastry chefs can make their own renditions of the shop's sophisticated confections. Each fabulous recipe features detailed instructions that even first-time bakers can follow to create treats that are — almost — too beautiful to eat.
Alice Medrich shares her exclusive techniques for making visually stunning, professional-quality desserts, from a Christmas mousse and a child's birthday cake of miniature cupcakes to dainty macaroons and soft-centered chocolate truffles. Easy-to-follow directions, illustrated in full color, explain how to sculpt chocolate roses, ruffles, fans, shavings, and other finishing touches. This newly revised edition features a new Introduction by the author, a new Chocolate Chart with advice on ingredients, and updated Resources and Equipment sections. The ultimate chocolate dessert book, Cocolat promises to be the crowning jewel of any cookbook collection.
"Alice Medrich's groundbreaking chocolate techniques and recipes, first at her much-missed Cocolat shops and then in her books, have certainly survived the test of time. Their flavor, appearance, and elegance are every bit as fresh and delightful today as they were when they first appeared. Cocolat is a true classic." — Nick Malgieri, author of PASTRY and BAKE!
"My seduction by chocolate happened the moment I bit into my first dark chocolate truffle at Cocolat, Alice Medrich's groundbreaking shop. I've been a dedicated fan ever since and was thrilled when she shared her coveted recipes in this book. Alice has always stood on the forefront of the world of chocolate, and Cocolat is one of the most cherished books in my cookbook collection!" — David Lebovitz, author of My Paris Kitchen and The Sweet Life in Paris
"At this very moment, I have a Mocha Pecan Torte in the oven because to read Cocolat is to bake from it, and that's as true now as it was when I was nine years old, awestruck by the sea of chocolate ruffles on the cover. Like many pastry chefs, I cut my teeth on this book, and it's hard to overstate Alice's influence on dessert menus and bakery cases across the country." — Stella Parks, Senior Editor at Serious Eats and author of BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts
"The kinds and variations of chocolate available in the United States have exploded since the original Cocolat was published in 1999. But what has remained constant is Alice's expertise in sifting through all the information so home cooks can successfully create desserts with one of the best ingredients on earth. Alice's original Cocolat is a classic in many bakers' kitchens, including my own. The pages of mine are chocolate-stained and dog-eared. I know I will soon get this new, revised version as messy as I absorb and learn all Alice has to share with us on her new chocolate discoveries." — Emily Luchetti, San Francisco–based pastry chef and author of several dessert books including Stars Desserts and The Fearless Baker
"Alice Medrich is the Grande Dame Extraordinaire of everything chocolate. Her patisserie, Cocolat was revolutionary and one of the very few in the banal landscape of American bakeries at the time. I have a copy of this original book and it inspired me early on in my career to master many of the techniques in here available to anyone who submits to their love for chocolate." — Elizabeth Falkner, Chef/Author/Artist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: May 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9780486822631

Alice Medrich

Alice Medrich has won more cookbook-of-the-year awards and best in the dessert and baking category awards than any other author. She received her formal training at the prestigious École Lenôtre in France and is credited with popularizing chocolate truffles in the United States when she began making and selling them at her influential Berkeley dessert shop, Cocolat. She has devoted much of her career to teaching and sharing her expansive knowledge about baking. Find her on Instagram and Twitter @alicemedrich.  

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Index

Introduction to the Dover Edition

Why write a new introduction to a vintage book? So much has occurred since Cocolat was published in 1990 it seems a good moment to capture the essence of the story, which began, for me, in 1976, and continues to this day. Our "world of food and ingredients has been utterly transformed—and continues to change—informed by new tastes and sensibilities, politics, and a greater appreciation of food in the context of culture and society. Food is a vital form of entertainment and an outlet for creativity and personal growth too—more cookbooks are published each year exploring myriad dietary philosophies, by an ever more diverse group of writers and chefs. It’s gratifying (and remarkable to me) that Cocolat has remained a "working cookbook and classic regardless of the grand changes in our time, not to mention specific changes in chocolate over the last quarter of a century.

In 1976 I opened a chocolate dessert shop called Cocolat in Berkeley, California. I was barely 27 years old, a mostly self-taught pastry chef with a bachelor’s degree in history. It was not yet common for college educated young people (let alone women) to pursue careers in food. Julia Child had been cooking on TV for over a decade, but it was still unusual for women to work as chefs. It was early in the American (some say California) food revolution born in the 1960s — which delivered us from tasteless squishy white bread, ground coffee in cans, cheeses dyed orange, iceberg lettuce, and bakery cakes made from mixes. Here in Berkeley we were already hooked on freshly roasted coffee beans, splendid and increasingly local cheeses, CaKfornia wines, and progressive restaurants beginning to explore what would become a new style of simple but exquisitely elevated local cooking. Soon we would discover or create a new world of artisan breads, craft beer, extra virgin olive oil, heirloom produce, and eventually small batch bean to bar chocolate. But 1976 was still early times—the (unfortunate) word foodie was not yet in use and we did not use the word artisan. Concern for organic and sustainable agriculture, humanely raised meat, and awareness of food politics was nascent for most of us. It was the beginning of the beginning.

In the world of sweets, chocolate was still fudge, not ganache. Americans had not tasted chocolate truffles or flourless chocolate cakes, and many didn’t know what chocolate mousse was! Milk chocolate was the chocolate of choice and dark chocolate was not as dark as it is today. Even in Berkeley, folks relied on fluffy, old fashioned looking American bakery cakes with sugary frosting. By comparison, Cocolat desserts were glamorous, elegant, decadent, and intensely chocolate. They were artisan desserts (as we say now), handmade from scratch (as "we said then), made with fine ingredients including excellent chocolate, butter instead of shortening, fresh fruit, freshly ground nuts, sipping-quality liqueurs and spirits, and real dark chocolate instead of cocoa powder—all unusual for bakeries of the time.

Cocolat was exotic and expensive and a bit French, but instantly and ardently embraced first in the Bay Area, then by the country. Locals came often for a slice of cake or a single chocolate truffle—forever fixing our reputation for popularizing chocolate truffles in the United States—and splurged regularly for a party dessert. They showed their sophistication by bringing out-of-town friends, visiting faculty, and foreign guests to Cocolat, just as they might take them to Chez Panisse (a block away). Julia Child and James Beard visited. It "wasn’t long before the renowned New York delicatessen, Zabar’s, called asking to buy our truffles!

By the time I sold Cocolat in 1990, my first book, Cocolat, had been published and—to my astonishment — received the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award and the Julia Child Award for the best cookbook by a first-time author. The latter was presented to me by Julia herself. I didn’t quite know what I had done that was so unique—but I remember the giddy thrill of that evening.

Twenty-six years and ten cookbooks later, young pastry chefs, home cooks, and random strangers on the subway—once even a TSA officer at the airport — continue to remind me that stained and "well-thumbed copies of Cocolat still occupy kitchen libraries in homes, restaurants, and pastry shops all over the world. I have a clearer picture of Cocolat now than I did on the night Julia handed me her namesake award. I see the book in its own time and "why it remains a classic. Let me put the publication of the Cocolat cookbook in context. Professional pastry chefs "were not publishing books for home cooks in 1990. Indeed, there weren’t many books for home cooks who wanted to learn French and European-style baking, and of them, few included enough information to make a génoise or handle French butter cream successfully. Neither did they include important troubleshooting notes, or details for finishing desserts with perfect chocolate glazes, chocolate ruffles and wraps, and so much more. When a publisher approached me to write Cocolat, I "wasn’t thinking about brand building or promoting my business. I just thought (perhaps naively) that I was supposed to write a book that an avid cook could actually bake and learn from. It would be complete with the seemingly endless, and gloriously finicky details that go into making not just superb, but stunning desserts. And that is exactly what I set out to do.

I did not draw from a comprehensive professional culinary education or even from work experience in a professional kitchen other than my own (neither of which I had). Many of my skills and techniques came from my own experimentation and invention and the habit of learning by doing, first at home and then in my own shop—and many break or reinvent the rules. In hindsight, I was uniquely prepared to write for home bakers because I started as a home baker — albeit a driven and rather obsessive one! I set out to explain all that a home baker needed to succeed — and did so mostly in my own words because I did not have the language of a trained chef.

Convinced that every reader wished to achieve the perfection of the desserts on display at Cocolat, I sought to break down the complexity of each process. I gave instructions for tasks such as making chocolate glaze — not simply how to make it (which is easy!) but how to eliminate air bubbles, how to level and crumb-coat a torte before glazing it, and how to pour and spread it perfectly so that it dries glossy instead of dull or streaky. Similarly detailed techniques are given for frosting with whipped cream without overworking it, making and handling French buttercream, piping with pure melted chocolate, making chocolate ruffles, and, of course, the chocolate truffles that launched my career. The recipe for génoise includes steps to prevent the tiny flour lumps and rubbery bottoms that often plague the classic French sponge cake—which go unmentioned elsewhere. There are instructions for how to design and cut your own stencils as well as entire paragraphs on troubleshooting! It’s still rare to find some of these lessons and details in a cookbook.

In 1990, a glance at the cover and interior photos may have suggested that Cocolat was a glamorous coffee-table book rather than a real kitchen companion. One reviewer accused me of using machine-made rather than hand-made chocolate ruffles for the cover photo! But the recipes and detailed instructions, including those for making ruffles, made Cocolat a real working cookbook, not just an objet d’art. Please don’t now imagine that there aren’t plenty of simple recipes in Cocolat — the first chapter is a grand collection of simple chocolate tortes, all of which are delicious enough to eat plain without filling or frosting or anything but a dusting of powdered sugar, even though all presented and photographed with fabulous finishes! There are other simple treasures throughout the book as well.

In addition to ambitious home cooks, Cocolat attracted the emerging group of young, self-taught chefs—many just like me—who ultimately opened their own chocolate shops and bakeries, or became dessert chefs in the new restaurants that were popping up in those exciting years. I am always pleased and proud to hear from home cooks who continue to use Cocolat and deeply honored to know about the self-made pastry chefs who came up after me, with help from Cocolat. I love knowing that copies of Cocolat can be found in kitchens headed by professionally trained chefs too!

What has changed since 1990? It’s common now—almost a requirement—for chefs to publish cookbooks. But chefs are too busy or they don’t love writing or even know how to write. Many have no idea how to make recipes suitable for a home kitchen. Chefs’ cookbooks are usually written by professional writers/co-authors who may also test and adapt the recipes for home kitchens! Many of the books are truly excellent, others less so. Cocolat was different — I wrote it and tested the recipes at home, and I was the food stylist and on set for all of the photography. I was pregnant in the last months of writing, and there was a new baby in the house during the book’s final editing stages.

In writing Cocolat, I took my first steps toward becoming a writer. Finding my voice on the page, I discovered the enormous satisfaction of transforming what I could do with my hands, heart, and palate, into words on paper—with enough detail and encouragement to enable passionate home bakers to replicate sometimes-ambitious desserts on their own. In the days before video cooking classes and YouTube, Cocolat was a viable teaching book, and remains so today.

I’ve continued to learn, teach, and publish in the years since Cocolat was published. I am happiest when I can approach a topic through my own experiences — rather than keeping to well-worn paths. I always hope for new insights and ideas. In 1993, my second book, Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts, took on low-fat desserts, which was a hot topic of the time. I did it my way—using real chocolate, butter, and cream, and without using weird substitutions, or forgetting that dessert should always be pleasure-full. I was rewarded for my effort with new insights into my craft—and I received a second Cookbook of the Year award.

By 2000, chocolate in America was on the brink of a transformation that would affect home bakers as well as professional chefs and chocolatiers. European chocolates that were stronger and less sweet than ours had become increasingly available to American chocolate lovers; and the tiny new company, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, had introduced a new American chocolate —the first with 70% cacao. The European chocolate and the new Scharffen Berger chocolate were not only more intensely chocolate-y they were labeled with a percentage telling us how much of the bar was pure cocoa beans—cacao — as opposed to sugar or other ingredients. Suddenly there were new choices in the baking aisle and new information on labels (cacao percentage) that most people did not yet understand. The new chocolates were less sweet and more interesting and complex than the old American brands. They were marvelous for nibbling, but they did not necessarily work in American recipes. My self-assigned project was to figure out and explain how to use these new chocolates in existing recipes and to create new recipes for them as well. Bitter Sweet (2003, Artisan Books) "was the result of that effort (and it received my third Cookbook of the Year award); the new edition, Seriously Bitter Sweet, published in 2013, remains the only book that decodes the use of chocolate with different cacao percentages.

Over twenty-five years later, I’m honored to see my first cookbook reprinted and proud to know that chefs and home cooks still use and cherish it. New readers can do the same. The notes and chart that follow—informed by the work I have done in the interim—will help you use the recipes successfully.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The original book is reproduced for you as it appeared in 1990. In these new front pages I’ve added Notes About Ingredients and—most important of all — The Chocolate Chart to help you use the recipes successfully today.

Chocolate has changed more than any ingredient we use in baking. The bittersweet and semisweet chocolate called for in Cocolat never exceeded 60% cacao—because that is what was available to home cooks at the time. If you use chocolate that exceeds 60% cacao, mousses might be grainy and hard, sauces might curdle, and cakes may be too dry—because cacao percentage affects texture as well as sweetness and flavor. But other recipes are forgiving and flexible and will work splendidly with higher percentage chocolates! The Chocolate Chart will tell you which recipes work with "which chocolates. Always check the chart (if nothing else) before you bake!

Notes About Ingredients

Butter

Use unsalted butter. Recipes call for sweet butter, which is how "we often referred to unsalted butter at the time of the original publication.

Cake Flour

Amending advice on page 19, recipes that call for cake flour "were created with Pillsbury™ Softasilk® or Swans Down® bleached cake flour. You can substitute King Arthur unbleached cake flour with good results. Disregard advice for substituting all-purpose flour by weight or using 2 tablespoons less of it.

Chocolate

Percentage is the new "way to buy chocolate. Labels such as dark, semisweet, and bittersweet no longer adequately describe the chocolate in a package! Always shop by percentage rather than name.

Chocolate Baking Chips or Morsels

Amending the advice on page 28, these days I do sometimes chop up a good bar of chocolate to use instead of purchased baking chips in cookies! But I (still) don’t use chocolate baking chips or morsels for any recipe that doesn’t specifically call for them.

Chocolate Bars (New Shapes and Forms)

Chocolate for baking (other than chips and morsels meant for cookies) used to come only in bars or squares that required chopping to ensure easy, safe melting without scorching. Today, chocolate is also available in the small shapes that professionals use— no chopping required. These smaller shapes may be called wafers, disks, pistoles, pastilles, buttons, callets, or ribbons; they come in bags or boxes ready to measure and melt. Like bars, these are labeled by percentage. Do not mistake them for chocolate baking chips or morsels.

Cocoa Powder

Amending the advice on page 28, we have better quality natural cocoas than ever before, and I have become a fan. Some, but not all, Cocolat recipes work with either Dutch process or natural cocoa—the choice is yours. Before baking, check The Chocolate Chart to see whether or not you can use either cocoa safely for a particular recipe. Adding to the list of brands already mentioned, I like natural cocoas from Scharffenberger Chocolate Maker and Guittard® Chocolate and a Dutch process cocoa, called Cocoa Rouge, from Guittard® Chocolate.

Eggs (Raw)

A few recipes — including chocolate mousses and one truffle recipe — involve the use of uncooked eggs, which was not uncommon in 1990. Risks associated with uncooked eggs can be mitigated by using farm eggs or eggs from a source that you trust.

Milk Chocolate

There are myriad new and more delicious milk chocolates available than we had in 1990. In addition to the brands already mentioned, I like milk chocolate made by the Guittard® Chocolate Company and Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker.

Oven Rack Placement

This useful information was not included in the original book. When baking a cake or cakes on a single rack, the rack should be placed in the lower third of the oven — that is, just below center. If baking on two racks, position the racks in the upper and lower thirds. If baking a single sheet of cookies or a single, very thin sheet of cake, place the rack in the center of the oven.

Semisweet and Bittersweet Chocolate

These sweetened dark chocolates are the chocolates most often called for in Cocolat. Today these range in cacao percentage from 55% to well over 80%—but in 1990, bittersweet and semisweet chocolate available to home cooks did not exceed 60% cacao and were so similar to each other as to be interchangeable in recipes! Today you should always shop for chocolate by percentage and ignore the terms semisweet and bittersweet! Before making any recipe in this book, consult The Chocolate Chart. It will tell you when to stick with a maximum of 60% cacao and when you can use a higher percentage chocolate. Higher percentage chocolate (even if it is labeled bittersweet or semisweet) can result in dry cakes, curdled ganache, or grainy mousses. The Chocolate Chart is your new best friend!

Unsweetened Chocolate

Unsweetened chocolate is also usually labeled 100% cacao or 99% cacao. There are more and better choices than there were in 1990.

White Chocolate

In 1990, white chocolate was not considered true chocolate and could easily be confused with "white confectioner’s coating made with tropical fats other than cocoa butter. The only way to know you were getting the best quality ingredient—made with cocoa butter—was to read the ingredient label closely. This is explained on page 29, where I also go on to suggest that an official designation for white chocolate would eliminate confusion by distinguishing it from the white coating made with other fats. This has come to pass! Today, all you have to do is look for white chocolate on the front of the label to know that it is the right ingredient to use. In addition to brands already mentioned, I like E. Guittard Crème Francaise and Soie Blanche.

A Few Words About Photography and Styling

Cocolat received the Perrier Best Food Photography Award from the James Beard Foundation in 1991. The photography and styling are very much of their time. Today’s reader will notice a dramatic difference from the artfully casual, spare table-scapes or minimally propped close-ups with which we depict food today. By contrast, the lush layered sets in Cocolat were inspired by very structured, quite formal-looking desserts — each a big statement to begin with—putting them into contexts that might be whimsical, fantastic, opulent, graphic, or stylish. No one has ever had more fun with fabrics, ribbons, painted surfaces, toys, and petite objets d’art as Sara Slavin (art director/stylist) and I had with Patricia Brabant (photographer) in Patricia’s studio that year!

In addition to dessert photos, each chapter opens with a graphic two-page spread illustrating a finishing technique or an arrangement of elements. We wanted the photo to be life-sized and big enough for two pages without having to enlarge the image. To accomplish this, I applied each technique—or arranged the elements — over the surface of a 16 × 24—inch bakery sheet pan and then shot from above. People often ask what these shots are:

Chocolate Tortes (pages 30–31): Bittersweet Chocolate Glaze (recipe on page 174) marbled with white and milk chocolate (See technique on pages 177–179).

Designer Desserts (pages 50–51): Cocoa Powder and Powdered Sugar applied with a hand-cut stencil (See technique on pages 186–188).

Specialties of the House (pages 72–73): Coffee Buttercream (recipe on page 182) textured with a serrated bread knife (See technique on pages 182–184).

Petite Rewards (pages 94–95): Chocolate Fans (See technique on pages 188–192).

Special Occasions (pages 112–113): Whipped Cream piped with a large closed star tip (See technique on pages 179–180).

Building Blocks and Finishing Techniques (photo spread between pages 157 and 158): Aztec Meringue Layers (pages 163–164) dusted with cocoa powder.

The Chocolate Chart

Before you bake, check the recipes on the chart (below) for chocolate or flour advice. The first column is an alphabetized list of recipes with page numbers. The second column tells you the cacao percentage of the chocolate used in the original recipes. The third column advises whether you should stick to the original cacao percentages for best results, or if it is okay to use a higher percentage chocolate. The last column includes some notes about flour and anything else that occurred to me as I reviewed the book! Blank cells after a recipe means I have nothing new to add.

Acknowledgments

I owe my greatest thanks, love, and appreciation to my husband, Elliott, who not only insulted that I could write a book, but persisted in believing. Moral support is one thing, but this man also entered every single one of my recipe drafts into the computer so that they would be at my fingertips for editing and rewriting. He brought me cold beer and roasted garlic chicken for dinner, and he took care of 2½-month-old Lucy before, during, and after work and weekends so that I could meet my deadlines.

The staff at Cocolat put up with my preoccupation and carried on so splendidly that I never felt guilty, only encouraged. I thank Carol Viliani and Susan Merrill-Chun, Albert Abrams, Christine Blaine, Molly Wantuch, and Mort Miller especially, for helping to make it possible for me to work, have a baby, and finish a book during the same year.

Cynthia Traina, of Traina Public Relations, taught me to appreciate some of my own accomplishments and encouraged many others to do so as well.

Patricia Brabant, whose photography and often art direction make this book so special, was a joy and an encouraging accomplice. Sara Slavin’s prop styling and collaboration, and her artist’s eye were inspirational to me. The two of them brought my fantasy to life on the page and allowed me to learn food styling on the job. I can t say how much pleasure this activity brought me. I was sad when it was over and we had to give up our Friday shoot days, even if some of them were long and hard.

Thanks to Jacqueline Jones for designing a beautiful book around my desserts and recipes, and for being extraordinarily patient and lovely to work with.

Donnie Cameron’s beautiful illustrations made this book complete and I thank her for working so agreeably around my erratic schedule.

My editor, Liv Blumer, was enthusiastic and encouraging — even when I was terrified and late. I appreciate her hard work, eye for detail, good suggestions, and her patience with a first-time author having a first baby in the middle of it all.

I tip my hat to Bob Miller, formerly at Warner Books, who called me out of the blue to ask if I wanted to write a book. Jane Dystal, my agent, made a deal and held my hand.

Warmest thanks to Charlotte Combe (Charlotte Combe Cooking School), Mary Ridley (Tante Marie’s Cooking School), and Jack Lirio (Jack Lirio Cooking School), who invited me to teach and taught me that I had something to offer others.

My grandmother, Mabel, taught me that quality is quality and plain u best. My parents, Bea and Herman Abrams, gave me all of the intangibles, including high standards, and especially the belief that I could do it my way.

Victoria Wise bought my first chocolate truffles and cakes for her wonderful Pig-by-the-Tail Charcuterie in Berkeley, and served as a powerful role model for Cocolat’s beginning.

Libby Medrich, sculptor and mother-in-law, lent me money to open my first store. I thank her also for bragging about me shamelessly.

Edith McClure stood by me and added something very special to Cocolat in the early years.

Jan Weimer wrote the first feature article about Cocolat for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1977. When we later became friends, Jan helped me choreograph the

Reviews for Cocolat

[starlightink · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably the best book about working with chocolate published.

[kimmr_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

About fifteen years ago I saw this book and knew that I had to own it. It was the first time I had spent so much money on a cookbook. I still love it to bits. It has been the inspiration for countless birthday cakes and other special occasion cakes and desserts ever since. In my view, it's a must for anyone who is serious about baking.