G. Ciocca - Pasticciere e Confettiere - 1923

The Modern Pastry Chef and Candy Maker by Giuseppe Ciocca
Fourth enlarged edition, Ulrico Hoepli Editore, Milan, 1923.

Published for the first time in 1907 in the famous Hoepli Manuals series, Ciocca’s text is regarded by culinary historians and industry professionals as the first true scientific and systematic compendium of Italian pastry.
Before Ciocca, pastry in Italy was heavily influenced by French-school recipes and relied on oral transmission or private notebooks. This volume has the great merit of having “codified” the national confectionery art, elevating the craft of the pastry chef from mere artisanal practice to a real technical and scientific discipline.

The title page of the 1923 fourth edition immediately clarifies the manual’s breadth and ambition:
• Encyclopedic completeness: It covers every branch of the discipline, from cookies to cakes, from leavened doughs (the historical studies on Milanese panettone are fundamental) to petit fours, advanced confectionery, candied fruits, and ice creams.
• Focus on the era’s industrial techniques: It includes cutting-edge sections for the early twentieth century, such as the detailed manufacture of the “English biscuits,” chocolate, and confetti.
• Aesthetics and decoration: The text proposes a practical method for decorative designs, originally supported by splendid chromolithographic plates out of the text drawn by Ciocca himself.
• The scientific approach: The presence of “brief notes on chemistry applied to the confectionery industry” represents a radical revolution for the era, introducing the idea that pastry is, above all, millimetric precision and chemical reaction.

The binding is somewhat stiff due to a rudimentary re-sewing at the spine
Slight signs of time. light foxing and yellowing
The volume is complete with color plates (out of text)