Ann Reardon

Chocolate Book Recipe

chocolate book recipe Ann Reardon How To Cook That

This chocolate book, like all good novels, has a delicious twist inside.  Each page has a completely different flavour.   The ‘leather’ cover is pure milk chocolate, making this book a unique and decadent surprise for your friends and loved ones.

 

I’m a stationery fan, I like leather-bound journals, customized diaries and cute notebooks.  My leather recipe journal is filled with sketches, ideas and messily written ingredient quantities, jotted down during my experiments in the kitchen.

Many of those little drawings and thoughts have over the years been turned into culinary creations on How To Cook That.  Still others are yet to make the big jump from the pages of my journal onto your screen.

One of the questions I’m often asked is where I get my ideas from.  There’s no one answer of course. Sometimes I see something in a bakery or an old cook book that makes me curious.  I jot down the idea and, over the next little while, start tinkering with ingredients. How could I inject some fun into it? Can I put a unique spin on an old favourite? And, importantly, can I be sure that it tastes as good as it looks?

The idea for this chocolate book started a while ago when I was looking at a sheet of untempered chocolate.  As I looked at the chocolate the texture and colour reminded me of my leather journal.  I noted it down and started toying with the idea.  A few weeks later, here it is … a chocolate version of my recipe journal, filled with yummy treats and surprises.

For the chocolate book cover

400g (14.11 ounces) milk chocolate, make sure that it is real chocolate, check the ingredients for cocoa butter.

For the pages
300g (10.58 ounces) white compound chocolate, check the ingredients contain vegetable fat

For the fillings
You can choose from a range of filling recipes on this website, I used dulce de leche and some flavoured ganache.   To make the White Chocolate Vanilla ganache make a simple ganache using white chocolate, cream and a teaspoon of vanilla essence. There are more fillings recipes on the ten best chocolate truffles video or for a simpler option you could use nutella or peanut butter.

chocoalte book ann reardon how to cook that

2014

by Ann Reardon How To Cook That

My Cookbook

ann reardon crazy sweet creations cookbook
Stores that sell my book listed by country: http://bit.ly/ARcookbook
All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.

85 Comments View Comments

  1. Rating: 5

    Hi Ann,
    This chocolate book recipe post stunning… I wann a try, i hope i wont get perfect book shape but i will try to make it.
    Thank you so much for such a good recipe…

  2. Hi Ann
    Highly inspiring tips and techniques however if you could post some eggless icing and cake or muffin recipes it would be useful

    Thanks

  3. If chocolate has coco butter and vegetable fat in is it tempered

  4. Hello, Anne. I was just curious, how do you make the spiced dark chocolate ganache. It is the only filling that doesn’t have a recipe on how to make it. I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me how to ma ke it. Thank you.

  5. Can you please help…. I’m in South Africa… our chocolate here have both cocobutter and vegetable fat in.

    We want to make the chocolate book but don’t get the correct chocolate here.

    What can we do?

  6. Rating: 5

    Hi I’m going to try and make this but i was wondering if i can use vanilla essence for the dulce de leche filling instead of vanilla extract

    • Hi Sarah, usually you can use one or the other though the extract will have better flavour and is made from vanilla bean, rather than a synthetic flavour.

  7. what is the recipe of the white chocolate vanilla ganache???? I can’t find it!!!!!

    • Hi Athena, It is just a standard ganache so Ann has linked to the other flavours you could use. We will add the vanilla ganache to this page. The ingredients you will need are white chocolate, cream and vanilla mixed in the ratios given here: https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/chocolate-ganache/

  8. This is such an awesome idea! I have been looking everywhere for this recipe!

  9. Hi ann,
    I’m doing this for my Itime. I have a question though.
    Do have to use compound chocolate? For me I don’t need it to be tempered so can I just use regular white chocolate.

    • Hi Craftypuppies, untempered white chocolate is very soft at room temperature, as soon as you take it out of the fridge it will be soft to touch. It is far easier to use the compound white chocolate for this chocolate book. Of course if you want to use white chocolate you can temper it.

  10. what’s the name of the song at the end of the video?

    • hello?

    • Hi Sophie, the music is from David Bulla: ‘High Life’ via NCS used with permission.
      NCS

    • The boat song

  11. Hi this is Malena how big should the pages be

  12. how big should the pages be

    • You can choose the size of your pages. As you can see from the video, Ann has made a small notebook.The template she used on video started with an a4 page and then marked out the size of the notebook she wanted. This would be close to A5 in size.

  13. Please tell me what measurements you sued for cover and pages?!?!
    Love love love this! ☺️☺️

    • Hi Ruby, You could make this whatever size you prefer. There are no set measurements to match. Ann’s finished chocolate notebook was similar to an A5 notebook, so the pages which would be about 15cm x 22.

  14. Hey Ann, I was wondering if you could do flags for different countries. I would appreciate it if you could do that. Thanks!

    • Oops. I forgot to say chocolate flags. Sorry.

    • Thanks for the suggestion Franke.

  15. Hi Ann im wondering if the cover could be done with tempered chocolate so that it does set firm so it can be moved as want to make this for a present for a teacher, thinking if i do all the pages first and then do the cover using tempered chocolate would that work, TIA Liza x

    • Hi Liza, Another subscriber has tried that and felt it worked well. Ann hasn’t trialled it but it should be okay. Obviously tempered chocolate sets with a gloss, so it wouldn’t have that leathery look. You would not be able to mold once it is set, as it shouldn’t re-soften. Lastly the finished product wouldn’t be any more moveable on the tray or plate you finish it on, so there is probably no great advantage to doing it that way. It is probably easier to use untempered chocolate for the cover and set it as you wish to display it on a board, that you could fit inside a suitable travel container. The board can move but not the book.

  16. Hi Ann, I would like to prepare this recipie, but, I want a coloured cover instead of a brown one. Can I use white chocolate instead of milk chocolate? I checked the ingredients and it contains cocoa butter

    • Yes Lucia, You can use white chocolate instead of dark or milk chocolate and colour it. Make sure you use oil based colour.

    • yes you can.you just have to colour the white chocolate and i know that because i did a red blue and green pattern on top of mine.

  17. Can you make something Disney please?

  18. Hey there,
    I was wondering if anyone could tell me what brands of chocolate that they used for both the real and fake chocolate? I have no idea where to get some, or which brands to use.
    Also, can you just pick cocoa butter with chocolate up from the store?

    • Brand don’t matta nestle does fake and real when they like

    • Hi Charlie, both real and favourite chocolate can usually be purchased from your typical supermarket or grocery store.

  19. i have a chocolate that contain vegetable fat and cocoa powder in the same chocolate . is it fake or real ?

    • Hi Serafina, Real chocolate will contain cocoa butter. If it is cocoa powder and vegetable fat it will be fake chocolate.

  20. I don’t have any white compound chocolate 🙁

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