Paul A Young's Adventures With Chocolate: chocopornoholic enchanting cookbook

Adventures with Chocolate: 80 sensational recipe is chocolate genius Paul A. Young's first foray into cook-books, and, like his wonderful shops in London, it's playful, inspiring, delicious and surprising.

Young's gifted touch with truffles, brownies and drinking chocolate have made his Islington store a fixture in our orbit around London. My wife's pregnancy was eased with his sea-salt caramels; we celebrated the birth with kalamansi truffles. The baby practically melted when she first tried a crumb of his cherry brownie. I am visited by Paul's chocolate in my dreams. I have been conditioned to start salivating when I reach the end of Camden Passage, and by the time I reach the shop, I need a bib to catch the dribble.

And here are all of Paul's secrets, laid bare in a superbly designed and printed book whose pornographically chocolated pages make you want to surreptitiously taste them (I tasted them. Tasted like clay-coated heavy paper stock). Paul's recipes are easy to follow and are equal parts inspirational (he makes it clear enough that even ham-fisted me believes that I can make them) and aspirational (in reality, it's a lot more likely that I'll just pop in on the Camden Passage shop and buy another box). And his essay on how he became a chocolatier, as well as his essays on buying and preparing chocolate, are sensational.

And truth be told, there are some recipes here I'd like to try for a special occasion: the savory chocolate recipes, if only because Paul doesn't actually sell these in the shop and I want to find out what a honey-cured bacon, Stilton and chocolate sandwich tastes like, or sip some cocoa-bean infused vodka, or try a salted black-olive bar with 600g of Ghanian tempered 68% dark chocolate.

I've just heard that the entire first run of Adventures with Chocolate has already sold out, but the second printing is due in less than a week, and should arrive in time for Christmas.

Sea-salted chocolate and pecan tart

Venezuelan chocolate pancakes with chocolate maple syrup

Adventures with Chocolate: 80 sensational recipe

• [Gloria]

  Well, it’s certainly available from Amazon Canada; I just looked it up. 3-5 weeks delivery though; take note, Xmas shoppers.

• [Anonymous]

  Small translation for Americans: “drinking chocolate” is “hot chocolate mix”.

  • [Anonymous]

    Drinking chocolate is NOT the same. It is like… melted chocolate and warm cream. aka- heaven. you cannot drink large amounts of it because it is so rich. comparing it to hot chocolate mix is like comparing apples to oranges.

• [megnesium]

  Curses! I am now struck with the international shipping rate woe.

• [Gloria]

  “a honey-cured bacon, Stilton and chocolate sandwich”

  I think I’ve discovered the purpose of my life.

• [EMJ]

  Hand-fisted isn’t a “real” word. Its ham-fisted.

  But it does bring some interesting thoughts to mind. What would a person be if hand-fisted. Or not hand-fisted.

• [Anonymous]

  My lovely husband bought this for me from Amazon.UK I think he has too much faith in my baking skills. The book is divine to look at though. :)

• [cymk]

  The pictures are lovely, but even being somewhat competent in the kitchen I doubt I could replicate the recipes to such lovely splendor. That alone could drive one into a depression-fueled chocolate eating frenzy.

• [Anonymous]

  funny

• [cwoehrl]

  Cory, this is mean. I’m afraid I won’t rest easy ’til I’ve grabbed a copy of this one :-) Those photographs alone…

• [Julian Bond]

  Paul A Young ++ Actually, that’s not enough. Best Chocolates Evah!

  That picture of the pancakes is too much. Please take it away.

  ps. In the previous post last year, somebody mentioned Charbonnel and Walker in Bond St. They are indeed damn fine choccies. And it’s only a short walk to Paxton and Whitfield for some cheese, Gerry’s in Old Compton st for some booze, James Fox in St James for cigars, or even Locks for a hat. But while good, C&W are well and truly eclipsed by Paul Young. Now where can I get some quality Iberico ham in London? Selfridges is OK, but I’m not convinced by the carvers or how well they keep it.

• [Anonymous]

  Will this book be available in the US?

• [8chocolate]

  Those photos are chocolate heaven!

  I posted an interview earlier in the year with Paul. Wish I could be there to taste his chocolates in person. Hope the book makes it across the pond…

• [Anonymous]

  Vosges used to make a white-chocolate black olive bar, but I can’t find it on their website, and to be honest, I didn’t like it much at all.

• [MooseDesign]

  A long time ago I worked for a large printer on the East Coast that was printing the annual report for Eskimo Pies and they used a custom ink mix that included chocolate. The whole shop (more like a warehouse) smelled like chocolate for over a week since the sheets had to be slipsheeted and dried for much longer. It had an awesome affect… flipping through the book would waft chocolate scents up. I have no idea how much it cost though…

• [Cory Doctorow]

  @11 I hear there is a US edition forthcoming — I’ll re-blog when it comes out, no fear.

• [arborman]

  amazon.ca had a couple of copies this morning. -1 ;)

• [Jewels Vern]

  That’s nice, but there is really only one chocolate recipe you’ll ever need:

  Ingredient:
  1 bar chocolate

  Instructions:
  1. Unwrap 1 bar chocolate.
  2. Consume immediately.

  • [randalll]

    3. Sob uncontrollably.

• [Anonymous]

  for iberico ham, go to brindisa. http://www.brindisa.com/ . That is all!

• [cymk]

  @Anonymous, @Cory, @arborman:

  Since when did the UK and Canada start speaking another language? The only problem I see would be UK/Canada Amazon not shipping to the US (having never had the need to attempt to purchase anything from Canada/UK Amazon stores I wouldn’t know).

  • [Abelard Lindsay]

    Just guessing, could the reason the US edition is different be metric vs. imperial measurements?