RobertM

When you make your hotel reservations with the Hyatt, you can do it following these steps: Go to www.fallschurch.house.hyatt.com or call 1-888-264-7051Enter arrival and departure dates pertinent to your eventClick on Special Rates (AAA, Govt…)Enter G-COF1 into the Corporate or Group Code boxClick on Check AvailabilityReservations will require a credit card for guarantee

Mette - while it's not to late to alter your altered plans - you are always welcome

Registered: RobertM Kerry Beal Chocolot Gwbyls Curls +1 Tikidoc Mike McCarthy Lebowits

Registered: RobertM Kerry Beal Chocolot Curls +1 Tikidoc Mike McCarthy

Yes, the dates are 15 May through 17 May

Good Morning everyone In order to register for the conference, go to PayPal and once you've logged in, click on the "Send & Request" tab at the top of the page. Then click on the "Send Money to Friends and Family" Enter my email Bob@popcornbiz.com the amount ($196.00) and click next and follow the online instructions. The first 23 of you to do so will be registered for the 2015 Confectioners Conference in Vienna, VA Hope to see everyone there! (Yes, I still hold out hope for Rob, Willow and Mette)

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing me say 'Soon' so, tonight I'll tell you all that tomorrow morning I'm going to post instructions on how to pay for the conference via PayPal. In order to wet your confectionery appetites, here's what is planned so far: The conference will be taking place at Culinaria Cooking School at 110 Pleasant St NW, Vienna, VA 22180. (http://www.culinariacookingschool.com/) This is a smaller venue than we had planned for, and the maximum number of students than can accomodate is 24. Therefore, registration will have to be limited to the first 23 people to register (I'm the 24th - sorry) I've arranged a block of rooms with the Hyatt House, Falls Church/Merrifield, 8296 Glass Alley, Fairfax, VA 22031 (571-327-2277). Room rates are $129/single/King size bed. $149/double/two queen size beds. Please mention the eG Confectionery Conference when making your reservations. Room rates will only be available until April 24th (or until the hotel reaches 80% booking). The hotel is located within a few miles of the school and will be very convienient. The hotel also has a continental breakfast. The closest airport to fly into would be Dulles International. However, depending on your ground transportation arrangements, Reagan National and BWI are other alternatives. If you're going to use a taxi to get to the hotel from the airport, I would strongly urge you to consider Dulles International. We will try and get some activities arranged for Friday during the day, there is a wonderful chocolate shop near the school, as well as in the Northern Virginia and DC areas. Friday night, one of our own, Ashley, has "volunteered" to cook us dinner at the restaurant she works at, The Bottle Stop in Occoquan, VA. Yes, it's a wine bar, but the dinner will be fixed and the drinks will be extra (to accomodate those who prefer not to drink). We can also have our Friday evening Chocolate Sharing here. Occoquan is a quant little town located on the Occoquan River, south of Vienna. Once we have an established registary of who is coming, we can work on cars, and other transportation to get us to and from the host hotel (Hyatt) Saturday will begin at 9:30 when Culinaria opens its doors. We are lucky (VERY Lucky) to have as a guest instructor Mark Heim, recently from the Hershey Company, coming into teach us. Mark is going to do two presentations, one on Laminated pieces and the other on Croquant. Mark has agreed to stick around for awhile on Saturday and if anyone has any questions about other confectionery issues, they can address them to Mark individually. Mark is a very talented man, I'm excited about him joining us this year. We are also working on another guest for Saturday, but that has not been finalized as yet. But, if we can pull it off, you'll be in for an additional treat on Saturday afternoon. If you want to practice, and get your fingers and hands busy in creating confections, we will have time to spend in the "test" kitchens as well. This, as those of you who have attended previously, is not all lecture. On Saturday night, the fine owners/chefs of Culinaria will be creating a delicious dinner for us in their kitchens where we will be able to enjoy their artistry and the company of our guests. Sunday is a day to ourselves in the kitchens, testing and learning. The price for the conference is $196.00 which includes lunch on Saturday and Sunday and your dinner on Saturday night. Friday nights dinner is not included. I've opted as the best alternative to collect the registration fee through PayPal. If you have an account, you are half-way there. Tomorrow I will be posting how to send the money to me for registration. As I understand it, if you have an account (and $196.00) in your account, you can transfer money with no fees. However, if you are using PayPal to send money to register, there will be a 2.9% fee (plus 30 cents). Which comes out to something like $5.98 Thank you all for your patience - If anyone has any questions, please feel free to post them and I will be monitoring eG tonight and answer them as quickly as I possibly can. Thanks Bob

It is not going to be the same without Yeti Chocolates - :-( Looking forward to hearing about the chocolate cafe though.... :-)

Bummer - simply Bummer.....not that you are traveling but that you won't be traveling to DC

We couldn't schedule the facility for a Masters Class on Friday - sorry. So, we will more than likely fall back on the traditional plans of getting together to tour/see some local chocolate shops, meet at the school Saturday morning for the demo(s) and hopefully some good "kitchen" time - Dinner will be AT the school on Saturday (Yes, I affirm it's SATURDAY) Night (yes TikiDoc, I'm O-L-D) and the price for Saturday's dinner will be included in the final cost (which will be posted soon - still a couple of things we have to determine).

OK, OK - My mind said one thing and my fingers did another - Dinner at the school is on SATURDAY Night - NOT Sunday - Geez...I'm so.....(fill in the blank)

The contract for the school was signed this morning and a deposit has been made, so we are now locked into the Culinaria Cooking School located at 110 Pleasant Street, NW, Vienna, VA 22180 I also contracted for the school to prepare us dinner on Sunday night - it's going to be a magnificent meal and it's a flat fee of $35.00/person. I still have one more cost to complete and then I will be announcing the total fee for this years conference. Thank you all for your patience

Because of the efforts of Steve we have a place to hold the conference in Vienna, VA. I'm working on getting us a block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn, Tyson's Corner which is just a few miles from the school. Of course, everyone is free to find a room/hotel on their own, there is no requirement to utilize the "host" hotel. Because of the need to "find" a new location for the conference we are unable to use their facilities for a Friday Master Class. I'm checking with Albert Uster to see if they would be willing to host us on Friday, similar to what they did for us on a previous DC conference. I am also making the final arrangements on a guest instructor for Saturday - I should have final information on that soon. The school will be cooking dinner for us on Saturday night and it sounds wonderful - so, don't make any plans to go out somewhere else, because, frankly, you'll be sorry. The school is smaller than those we have used in the past and the number of participants will be limited to 24. I'm sorry, but we won't be able to accomodate any more than that number, and because of that they will be open only to the first 24 on a first come/first pay basis. I'm setting up a Paypal account so when we "release" the final details and costs, I'm will have the participants log into the account and use a credit card to pay for the weekend. Similar to what we all did for the 2014 class in Vegas. I'm hoping to have the final financial details resolved in the next week so we can get this party started.

Good Morning It looks like we've found another facility in the Northern Virginia area to host the conference. They seem very excited to have us. I'll be able to report back more positive news shortly. They have the weekend of May 16 & 17 open. The new facility is in Vienna Virginia. I'll be looking for a decent hotel nearby, but for those that know the area I'm going to try to keep you out of Tysons Corner.

Hi folks! Just heard from the school, they are going to be going through a certification and won't be able to host the conference this year. I'm looking at other options, looking for other culinary schools, keep watching this space for additional information

STILL No word from Stratford - I'll pull out the stops this week and see if I can get them off the dime....

Happy New Year! I haven't been ignoring this thread - anything but - been trying to accomplish a few things behind the scenes. I've potentially found an instructor - more on that later when it's more of a sure thing. For those who attended last time - did you like the hotel? Would you like to see a different hotel? About the school/venue - I've spoken to them many, many times and while they still say they are anxious to have us back they won't commit on the dates for the conference. This is my big stumbling block at this time because I can't commit to an instructor, I can't commit to you who are coming, the hotel venues, and of course, you can't make plans I'm going to see them again in about 10 days and hope to be able to make a positive report so everyone can begin to make travel arrangements. I did mention to the school that most of us would like to see a "quick" lunch (sandwiches?) in lieu of a sit down lunch - giving us more kitchen time. They liked that idea and are happy to make those changes. Saturday night will still be the sit down - school chef/students prepared meal. Looking forward to making some progress .....

Mario Batalli has a magnificent recipe for a rack of Pork called Aristarchus Toscana. Simple, but elegant and delicious! I highly recommend it, I've cooked it for a Christmas Eve dinner for 20+, everyone raved....

I will give it a try....it would be interesting to do a side by side comparison ...

It's a cut marshmallow that's is supposed to be suitable for coating in chocolate. I'm supposed to Add an egg Feappe as part of the manufacture. The addition of the frappe increases the tenderness and improves the eating quality. It's the frappe that calls for the quick boiling starch.... A long way to the answer, but, there you go.... Thank you for your help!

I've got a 60 year old confectionery formula book that has several formulas I want to try. However, I have run into a stumbling block, One formula is asking for 40 or 60 fluidity quick boiling starch Problem is, I'm not sure what that is or where to find it.... It's an ingredient in egg Frappe... Anyone have knowledge they are willing to share?

Kris - those look beautiful! I'm curious, how are you preventing moisture migration between your shortbread and your dulce-de-Leche? Do you find your shortbread to crumble?

Yeti...beautiful work!

It sounds right to me Chocolot...methodology seems as varied as the variations of types of caramel...dry caramels, milk caramels....and the list grows

I agree. I cook my caramels in copper kettles all the time, they conduct heat amazingly. It sounds to me like you inadvertently got some sugar crystals in your caramel and it did crystallize the entire batch. Adding glucose will help keep the sugar crystals under control