Lockdown baking mastered? Turn your hand to desserts with A Passion for Chocolate

Experiment with the recipes of Lyon’s famed Bernachon patisserie using the American translation of its cookbook, La Passion du Chocolat

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Try your hand at making chocolate desserts using the recipes of Lyon’s famous Bernachon chocolate and pastry shop translated for American kitchens, in the cookbook, A Passion for Chocolate. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 2:00am, 7 May 2020Updated: 4:06pm, 7 May 2020

As the coronavirus crisis continues, people in lockdown the world over have been spending a lot of time stress baking. For those who have mastered bread, it’s time to move on to something else.

Chocolate desserts are a good challenge. In La Passion du Chocolat (1985), late French father-and-son chocolatiers Maurice and Jean-Jacques Bernachon reveal the recipes of Lyon’s famous Bernachon chocolate and pastry shop.

It was translated into English in 1989 by Rose Levy Beranbaum – writer of some of my favourite baking books, including The Cake Bible (1988), The Pie and Pastry Bible (1998) and The Bread Bible (2003) – who also adapted the recipes for American kitchens.

For A Passion for Chocolate, Beranbaum didn’t just translate the French, she also went into the Bernachon kitchens to observe and ask questions, giving the reader a look into a space usually off-limits. Instead of buying chocolate like most patisseries and chocolatiers, Bernachon’s workers start with raw cocoa beans, which they process into the high-quality chocolate used in the shop’s desserts and confections.

A Passion for Chocolate, by Maurice Bernachon and Jean-Jacques Bernachon. Photo: SCMP / Jonathan Wong

In the introduction, Beranbaum writes, “In this book, I have presented myriad of Bernachon’s special tips and secrets, such as ageing the ganache for superior flavour, candying orange peels without the usual bitterness, baking ladyfingers on cardboard for maximum moistness.