Whether you like your chocolate gooey and rich, creamy and smooth, or nutty and dark, this Storey BASICS® guide shows you how to make your favorite sweet treats right at home. Bill Collins provides illustrated step-by-step instructions for a variety of chocolate-making techniques, including tempering, thickening, sugar boiling, mold filling, piping, and more. You’ll soon be showcasing your confectioner’s skills in decadent chocolate-dipped fruits, indulgent nut barks, and fudges that melt in your mouth.

Bill Collins is the author of Making & Using Caramel, How to Make Chocolate Candies, Knife Skills, and Making & Using Vinegar. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, he cooked at the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston and directed new product development at Harbor Sweets (Salem, Massachusetts) prior to establishing Chef Bill, Inc., in 2001. He has been a professional chef, a personal chef, a food industry consultant, and a cooking instructor, giving classes everywhere from community colleges to Whole Foods to Stonewall Kitchen. As Chef Bill, he has written newspaper columns on kitchen skills. He lives in Pelham, Massachusetts.