Product Description

An eccentric entrepreneur with a mission to educate the British public into the delights of top quality chocolate, Willie Harcourt-Cooze, star of the Channel 4 series WILLIE'S WONKY CHOCOLATE FACTORY, shows how to use the ultimate luxury ingredient in a collection of over 60 mouth-watering recipes.

Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook is composed of two parts. In the first half of the book, Willie tells the extraordinary story behind his dream to produce the very best chocolate in the world. Twelve years ago, he and his wife Tania sold everything they had to buy a cacao farm in the Cloud Mountains of Venezuela. Passionate about growing, harvesting and processing their own cacao beans, their chocolate dream took the family to near bankruptcy, and from the wilds of Venezuela, where Willie learnt how to be a cacao farmer, to the rolling hills of Devon, where he built a small, chocolate factory and now makes his 100% cacao bars.

We're conditioned to think that chocolate is a confectionary, when in actual fact the real thing is the most wondrous, versatile ingredient, whether you use it for savoury or sweet. Willie's recipes show how 100% cacao can enrich an astonishing range of dishes, from Tiramisu and Venezuelan Hot Chocolate to Chicken Mole and Porcini and Chocolate Risotto. Like salt, just a small amount can strengthen or bring out the flavours in food, or simply add depth and richness and body. It's amazing stuff, and should live by the olive oil in everyone's kitchen.

With stunning photography, a compelling narrative, and fantastic, easy-to-follow recipes (including those from his Channel 4 programmes), Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook is perfect inspiration for all food-lovers. Viva Cacao! The chocolate revolution starts here...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1968 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review

'In the past 15 years, a love affair with high-quality chocolate has swept through Britain and Harcourt-Cooze is its new, ambitious cupid'

About the Author
Willie-Harcourt Cooze grew up on a small farm in Ireland. After travelling in Asia and South America, it was in Venezuela Willie discovered his lifetime passion – chocolate – bought a hacienda and planted 10,000 cacao trees. He lives with his wife Tania and their three children in Devon where they make chocolate from bean to bar.

Customer Reviews

Willie's winning recipe for life
This book is part autobiography, part cookbook. In the first half of the book we learn of Willie's hard but idyllic childhood, followed by a tough early adulthood that leads to travels that eventually take him to Venezuela. The stories about how he comes across a cacao plantation, buys it, improves it, and decides to move in to chocolate making are all recounted in the recent TV series but here are much more interestingly told, and in more detail. I could recommend the book just for the first half. However, the second half of the book, Willie's recipes, is also very rewarding. When I watched the TV series my attention was always held by Willie's cooking, and in particular the ways he could find to add chocolate into his dishes. Well, I have already tried out a few of the recipes in the book (for Hot Chocolate, Cacao Bread, and Chicken Mole) and found the results delicious! He may look a bit crazy but there's no doubt that Willie is a force for good in the world of fine chocolate. He was a deserving winner of the Academy of Chocolate's Personality of The Year Award in 2008.

Excellent
My girlfriend bought me this book and we're both hooked! We've tried most of the recipes and I've never tasted chocolate like it; even when you can't get hold of the special 100% cacao stuff they taste absolutely delicious. One problem - you'll never be able to go back to Cadburys...

utterly brilliant
Absolutely brilliant. Willie's passion is evident throughout the book, and what a wonderful tale of triumph over adversity. I love how use the chocolate can be used in both sweet and savoury recipes - congratulations Willie on a superb book. Worth every penny.