Making chocolate will make you appreciate great bean-to-bar chocolate. Dandelion chocolate, started by the authors of this book, is the epitome of what most of the best chefs preach: find the best ingredients and then do the least amount of work to let them shine and speak for themselves; Dandelion chocolate is cocoa beans and cane sugar, and the flavors are spectacular. This book pulls back the curtain on their whole process, start to finish, and spares no secrets… Never in my life did I entertain making my own chocolate, but my fingers are itching after reading this book — turns out, it’s all pretty simple!

The book walks you through the entire lifecycle of a chocolate bar: growing, harvesting, fermenting, drying, winnowing, roasting, refining, conching, and tempering. Sounds intimidating? The book is beautifully illustrated and written in an engaging and conversational tone that draws you into the journey… Before you know it, you might find yourself checking the back of your next chocolate bar for signs of where and how it was sourced and what process the chocolatier used to prepare it. After reading this book, I have a new level of appreciation and respect for great chocolate.

Oh, and there are two other big parts to the book: the actual and hands-on how-to for how to make chocolate at home, in small batches, and at large scale (they literally share all the “secrets”), as well as a nice collection of recipes for the chocoholics. It’s a book written by and for makers, scientists, foodies, and chocoholics.

You can’t go wrong.