New Chocolate Classics: Over 100 of Your Favorite Recipes Now Irresistibly in Chocolate

Dalsass, the food columnist who also penned The New Good Cake Book, reasons that if such regular desserts as key lime pie, strawberry shortcake and tiramisu are good, surely adding chocolate would make them even better. Well, perhaps, but 100 recipes' worth borders on overkill. She travels the world, fearlessly remaking traditional favorites from Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Mexico and the U.S. The breadth of selections is impressive, ranging from pies and tortes, cakes and puddings to cookies, coffee cakes and breads. Who could argue with adding chocolate to Coconut Cream Pie or even homey Gingerbread? Bite-size chocolate Petits Fours from France, creamy chocolate-ricotta-stuffed Cannoli from Italy and a number of nut tortes from Germany and Austria might benefit as well. However, purists will grumble at some of the other selections, believing that Panettone, Kugelhopf and Focaccia should be chocolate-free zones. Oeufs a La Neige, the pristine and elegant French dessert, will only look dirty, and if you want your Creme Caramel to taste like a brownie, you may as well eat a brownie. As for Key Lime Pie, is it still, properly speaking, Key Lime Pie when it sits on a chocolate crust and calls for melted chocolate and sour cream? Dalsass's research on world dessert recipes is insightful, but by bringing up renovated versions of Vinegar Pie, pecan and apple-studded Huguenot Torte and German Wine Cake, scented with port and rosemary, she may send readers scampering to vintage cookbooks to find the original recipes. (May)