"Chocolates from Steeple Bumpstead" features nearly thirty enticing varieties of truffles - classic rum, smooth champagne and country slow gin, as well as non-alcoholic flavours such as honey, ginger and fruit. Julie Haycock reveals how to achieve that magical blend of taste and texture every time. She also includes recipes for fondants, creams, liqueur chocolates, and chocolate and marzipan petits fours, offering practical advice that will ensure success with these mouth-watering delights. Special techniques are explained: how to mould chocolate for Easter eggs and making sweet centres such as fudges, montelimar and coconut-ice, for instance - and there are plentiful ideas for the finishing touches and stylish gift-wrapping. Illustrated throughout with full-colour photographs and "how to" illustrations, "Chocolates from Steeple Bumpstead" offers all the wholesomeness of the country with more than a suggestion of high-style living. Julie Haycock is a keen cook who has always prided herself on making everything for her dinner parties, from the bread rolls to the after-dinner mints and petits fours. She was almost forced in fulfilling her first order for 8lb of truffles for a local restaurant - by an enthusiastic guest who recognized that her chocolates were just what he needed to round off meals at his restaurant. Three years later, she makes one million chocolates a year, and supplies restaurants and selected retail outlets. All are made to recipes she has developed over the years, and traditional recipes which she has enchanced. She lives in a traditional farmhouse in Steeple-Bumpstead, near Saffron Walden in Essex, where her family have farmed for generations. Chocolates from Steeple Bumpstead is her first book.