Mette

Chocolate world has a transport themed mold with cuddly plane, train and boat, but this means you'll need contracts with a whole range of companies - think: expansion of business as excuse for mold buying Mold with transport theme Good luck!

Try looking at the Kroese website - they have something in the line of what you are looking for for - yopu may have to registerGood luck!

I'm sure that smoking chocolate is illegal in some countries....

We had a discussion a while back about something similar. I found the link for a recipe, which can be useful for the filling. Good luck

What a talented bunch of people! Been a bit busy lately, but have made: Website cake for the launch of our long awaited web revamp at work (chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, marmalade, rolled fondant). It is meant to mimic our website as it looked on launch day Tortoise cake for the 4-year old (genoise, strawberry whipped cream, marzipan) Race track cake for the 6-year old's birthday party (genoise, raspberry whipped cream, marzipan). There's a ramp from the parking to the track on the other side, but it did not want to be photographed Wedding cake for my sister (Traditional danish ring cake w royal icing and fondant flowers) and now there are no more birthdays or weddings for a few months.....

Everything looks great - as always For easy mirrored displayds, places like IKEA sell chep, framed mirrors that can be customised without too much fuss. Congratulations !!! on the future addition to the family - going off favorites is very irritating though - especially chocoale

On a slightly less classy note..... ...we've been baking cupcakes for the almost-4-year-old's birthday party - the offspring is very pleased with the result and waiting is difficult

I am not a pro, so bear with me. In Denmark, HFCS is not readily available, so I happily substitute light beet syrup, which is the available syrup, with no ill effects. Or honey, which add a pleasant flavour Just out of curiosity - why do you want to avoid HFCS?

The hassle of converting is most often what prevents me from trying recipes found online or buying cool, American cookbooks. I weigh out everything, and in Denmark (and presumably the rest of Europe) you can buy a measuring cup with grammes on it for a range of things, like sugar and so on, similar to this one (click on image for larger image). Not hugely accurate, but still better than having to convert everything to volume I can only recommend weighing :-)

I have used powdered colours (from PCB) with no ill effects - to make little green frogs - gave a surprisingly even colouring

Thanks - I'll try the instant and report back

Finally get around to posting my results of this adventure Pizza Bread We love it, especially that the dough is at hand. It makes it a lot less involved to just pull the needed dough out, top up the remainder and away you go. Having been away for a couple of weeks means that the dough in the fridge has turned into some kind of sourdough monster, but the loaf I baked form it (not this one) has a very good flavour, if a bit flat.

I tried to, but the result was stright in the bin

Smiley riley - They look ab-fab! (and small Riley as well ) Welcome to the chocolate community!

I had a very nice coffee flavoured gianduja in a selection of chocolates I was given. My attempt to reproduce it was a disaster - basically I create a pound of horrible, lumpy, broken mess by adding coffee infused cream to prefab gianduja. I have a load of the prefab gianduja sitting in the cellar, but how to flavour it? Thanks

Sound like fun! I'll have a look at their website for other courses - chocolate courses aren't exactly run of the mill in Europe I've seen the Belcolade range at my wholesalers, but I have been hesitant to try them, partly because they come in bars as opposed to the handy callebaut drops. Based on your recommendation, I'll have a look for the organics and singel origin next time (especially as most of my other ingredients are organic, and I coud impress the hell out everybody by making nice organic chocolates ) Have a fabulous trip - looking forward to the nitty-gritty details /Mette

For those not owning the book, the master recipe can be found online Happy baking

Inspired by this thread on things learned in 2007 I have been thinking about what I want to achieve in 2008 on the chocolate front: Learn how to temper on a tabletop Get better packaging for my chocolates Take some kind of chocolate skills class to imropve my technique and repertoire And exercise more so I can eat more chocolate and more cakes Anyone else? (putting things in writing and public is a great incentive to get them done....)

Better late than never I learned how to fix a broken ganache with hot corn syrup, using the technique described in Shott's book A small achievement, I know, but it hasn't been much of a chocolate year.

I buy my moulds from Chocolate World in Belgium (clear Belgian molds) - they give the weight of each piece (solid mold) for all molds, which is a great guide to making relatively uniform size chocolates of varying designs Good luck with the moulded adventure - it is a whole new world :-)

Mette Did you make these in a molded chocolate or did you have truffle shells? ← I have made them in moulded shells and in the little prefab cups that PCB carry. In the prefab cups, I simply pipe on a bit of tempered choc for a lid of sorts, to cap them

Ah, yes, mediants - just goes to show there's been too much work and too little chocolate And thank you for the kind words! The dulce de leche coffee truffles are very, very good!! Creamy, caramelly with a very distinct coffee flavour - I can highly recommend them.

Everything does, as always, look absolutely fabulous - living in the Danish Chocolate Desert, this thread is like a mirage..... I've finally managed to make some chocolates AND find the energi to post. So here's what I've made for christmas: Top row is a dome with the coffee ganache from Greweling's dulce de leche coffee truffles, milk and dark enrobed gianduja and the lemongrass-coconut from Shott's book, slightly changed to make it more liquid. Middle row is Marzipan, whisky and star anise. The selection did also include a raspberry/balsamic thing, but all gone. To entertain the kids, we made white chocolate covered, candied lemon peel and those flat things with nuts and bit in them, the word for which escapes me at the moment. Note the happy face I haven't had much time recently, so I thought I'd cheat a bit and use the pre-fabricated rounds and squares from PCB (these) and enrobe my fillings instead of doing much moulding - ERROR - ERROR - ERROR. Enrobing is much more time consuming the moulding - the only short cut is less clearing up. Jolly holiday to all - looking forward to seeing your creations in 2008 P.S. I wish I'd been dipped in chocolate for three weeks - I've just been dipped in work

I haven't tried this particular recipe, but I do quite often make something similar - 'rolls that almost bake themselves' 8 dl water 2 -3 tsp salt a bit of honey 10 g. fresh yeast enough flour (whatever is in the cupboard) to make dough the consistency of thick porridge (use at least app. 60 % high protein wheat flour for the rolls to come uout well risen) dissolve yeast in water, add other ingredients and stir till mixed. Let rise in fridge overnight. Shape rolls by using two spoons and drop on greased sheet. let the dough warm up for a while bake at 225 c until done (depends on size) - can be popped in tins to rise in the fridge overnight - adjust baking time and oven temp. This recipe makes moist, chewy rolls that are very nice when fresh. The principle is the same as the crock-bread. It is ideal if you want to make someting that takes care of itself (and don't like to touch the dough ), but, just as with the crock-bread, you don't get a very well developed bread.

I've made some jelly of red currants and black currants (boil out the juice, add the same volume in sugar, boil till slightly thick, jar), but it has not set. I tried reboiling it with the addition of commercial pectin to no avail - still too runny to put on toast. I did possibly add too little pectin, but I dont like it hard-as-rock-jelly. Can this be saved? is it safe to reboil, now that I've added pectin? Thanks /mette