Chocolate Never Faileth by Annette Lyon

Food to eat while reading: Chocolate Fudge Cake (come back tomorrow for the Tasty Tuesday recipe)

“Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate,”
 is just one of the quotes and trivia that you will find on the pages in Annette Lyon’s new recipe book, Chocolate Never Faileth. Every recipe in the book includes chocolate as an ingredient: from cookies and ice cream, to popcorn and lip gloss. Published on October 1, 2010, this recipe collection makes a perfect gift just in time for the holidays.

Annette Lyon, resident of American Fork, Utah, is the author of seven novels and worked as an assistant director for the Utah Chocolate Show in 2004. She told me that any chocoholic will enjoy her book but, “you don't need a culinary degree to make tasty treats.” The easy to follow instructions allow even the most cautious home cook to bake decadent desserts.

With more than 125 heavenly creations, this recipe book is a delight to read. Included is a glossary, a recipe index, an ingredients resource guide, and ten pages of how-to’s for cooking with chocolate. The modern-ish country kitchen layout is beautiful and most of the recipes have a companion photo for you to drool over (my two-year old son literally licked a photo of “Chocoholic Lemon Squares”).

After perusing the cookbook, I had to test the Hot Fudge Cake (p. 29) at home. To my delight, the recipe was simple to make, turned out exactly like the photo and satisfied my hard to satiate chocolate appetite.

Annette spent three months baking and prepping food for weekly photo shoots for the book. She says, “Some recipes worked great right out of the gate, while others . . . didn't.” Annette collected the recipes and gave them her own treatment. “If I found a recipe I wanted to use, I went out of my way to change and tweak it anywhere I could so it was MINE,” she says.

What is Annette’s favorite chocolate recipe? She says it depends on her mood, “Lately it's been “French Silk Pie”. I'm game for almost any form of chocolate!”

For the complete interview with Annette Lyon click here.

Purchase: Chocolate Never Faileth

Genre: cookbook

Publisher: October 1st 2010 by Covenant Communications, Incorporated

Where I got the book: Deseret Book