I have had this book in my library for quite some time and finally used it last year for the first time to make Christmas gifts for friends and family. This book has very easy to follow instructions for anyone to make a very wide assortment of these chocolate delights and really impress your friends. Apart from a wide range of recipes the author has also included helpful information on tips and tricks to achieve consistent results. Unfortunately the "complete disaster" reviwer Sly Hallman, obviously didn't have much luck with his truffles. I suspect that he didn't follow the recipes properly or used substandard ingredients. Using quality ingredients as in any recipe will greatly affect the results.

My roommate gave this to me as an early Christmas gift (so I'd have enough time to make some for her!) and I couldn't be more grateful. This book may have a few flaws, but for the beginning artisan truffle-maker it gives great, easy-to-follow instructions, and the opening chapter with tips on tempering/dipping/etc. is concise without omitting too much background info. So far I've made the champagne truffles, white chocolate cranberry truffles, triple truffles, ginger truffles, caramel fleur de sel truffles, cocoa-rolled bittersweet truffles, and pumpkin spice truffles. The only ones I had trouble with were the ones involving white chocolate - but afterwards I realized I had stupidly used white chocolate without cocoa butter in it. Oops! If I remember correctly, the book actually points out the difference between typical store-bought white and REAL white chocolate, so that was my mistake. Either way, I just melted the unsuccessful filling into some heated milk as per Wilson's suggestion and made delicious cocoa, perfect for the holidays.

I made two types of truffles with added liqueurs and neither solidified. Researching what went wrong, I found that, when adding liquid to a truffle cream, it's necessary to add a certain amount of butter, in order to replace the butterfat that would have been present had the liquid ingredient been cream. This seems like pretty common knowledge, so I'm not sure why her recipes with added liquids do not call for the addition of butter. I just wasted a pound of good chocolate (as well as other ingredients) and now have nothing to give away as holiday gifts.

I bought this book after reading the raving reviews and tried two recipes last night: white chocolate truffles and cognac truffles. To my dismay, the cognac truffles never solidified and when I tried to roll them became blobs of chocolate instead, plus the quantity of cognac is excessive. The white chocolate truffles held up better (there is more fat in white chocolate) but were too mushy. After reading other chocolate books and comparing, I found out most truffle recipes call for butter which helps solidify the chocolate. This book only has chocolate and heavy cream in the ingredient in practically all recipes. I am so surprised at the 5 star reviews when 2 of the most basic recipes were such a dissapointment. And to think I wasted 4lb of wonderful chocolate!

I just received this book a few days ago and I am so excited! I have NEVER made chocolate truffles before, and I was a bit nervous that I would not be able to. All worries are gone now. I was able to make a batch of awesome truffles with both of my young children awake. It was so easy, and they are so rich and tasty. I hope to give truffles as small Christmas gifts and my very first batch looked like the book cover. My only disappointment was that the book recommends using tempered chocolate to achieve the crisp glossy chocolate coating. The process described in the book looks doable, but pretty involved and buying a tempering machine is very costly. However, after talking to a local candy/baking store, they recommended using "dipping chocolate". I would definably suggest reading the beginning of the book discussing truffle basics before you get started. Overall, I think this book is wonderful and it is so easy to follow the simple clear instructions. It would make a super gift for anyone who loves chocolate!!!