Kerry Beal

Definite RobertM Sue Casey Chocolot curls MelissaH Gwbyls tikidoc Robyn sarahdwyer Dilittante + 1 YetiChocolates dhardy123 Beets3 Tentative gfron1 - not seeing a commitment to come above but seeing an interest in Morato! lambrecht gourmet prabha Mark Heim (strong tentative!) patris and sib Lurking waiting to decide DianaM

Devil's advocate here - my chocolate room microwave is on wall brackets like these that I found for about a buck as a thrift store. No counter space required..

How did he do those non splattered ones?

Yup - just didn't like the flavour

Here's the turkey meat cooked in a bit of chicken stock - wasn't at all impressed with the flavour so didn't use it in the soup. Soup with with stock from cooking the turkey, carrots, parsnips , celery and the Christmas Limas - good grinding of pepper.

Found a package of turkey dark meat, no skin, in the freezer last night. Decided to bring it along with plans to have it as my lunch and use the remainder to make turkey vegetable soup for dinner. A handful of RG Christmas Limas went in the pot for 20 minutes. Perfectly cooked - awaiting their placement in the soup later today.

Found these lovely little silicone cups made by Danesco in Steel City Surplus for 49 cents each. They have a flat bottom that means I can just sit them strait down without having to worry about jar rings and such. Not sure they would hold a big double yoker though. After 3 minutes and quick release still a bit undercooked. Back in for one minutes they were a bit over cooked. I suspect 4 minutes from the start would be fine. Had already put the eggs in the cups before reading Anna's instructions to grease the cups well (she actually said I should grease the cops but none have shown up here at work yet).

My aquavit experiments involved first the herbs which didn't result in the flavour I was after (Taffel) - then with essential oils. To 100 ml of 45% ETOH I added 15 drops of a mixture of 120 drops caraway, 10 drops dill, 2 drops coriander, 8 drops bitter orange. Aged in nuke with a couple of sherry chips.

I make purees when the fruit is in season and keep in my freezer.

It's just a recipe I put together - it's a butter cream so contains fondant which I rarely use any more in fillings - Pear Almond Center 125 grams butter 375 grams fondant 375 grams almond paste 50 grams pear william liqueur 50 grams pear puree 1 teaspoon pear compound Mix room temperature butter and fondant in food processor. Add almond paste, and remaining ingredients.

Roasting rhubarb certain does concentrate the flavour and sweeten it up. I add some freeze dried fruit to boost the flavour as well (of course not everyone has freeze dried rhubarb floating around). Also I tend to add a bit of of booze when I do fruit flavours - if I'm using red fruit I add some lemon vodka or a citrus liqueur of some sort. Rhubarb alone though I'm not really a fan - I prefer my rhubarb with strawberry! Never made a pear alone ganache that I've been happy with - they simply do not have a distinct enough flavour - but pear almond - that's a great combination with a bit of Poire William in there to bump it up.

Gotta agree on the microwave - when I was down in Utah in November, I went to visit a new bean to bar manufacturer to show them the EZtemper. They didn't have a microwave so it was a bit of a challenge to melt some chocolate for the demo. After fiddling with heat guns for a while we finally set up a pot of water on an induction burner and put a stainless bowl over it. I can have chocolate tempered in less than 5 minutes with a microwave and the EZtemper.

Recipe to share?

Shipping to Canada is a bit dear! I've seen them in thrift stores - and resisted - one day I'll give in. Had one when I was a kid.

That would be a good sub for a Mold'art for him. And welcome Je33 if we haven't already welcomed you.

It is above - posted Jan 19th

I would love to find an old Ktel Dial 0 Matic - it slices, it dices - made great waffle chips.

Steve - Martin is in the UK - so I suspect some of the vendor choices for him will be different. Mold'arts will probably be less expensive where he is. Not sure what is equivalent to the Chocovision in the UK. I too like my aluminum bars more than the stainless - I like the idea of stainless but the weight and cost is a huge issue.

Go to a metal shop and get them to make the caramel rulers for you - much cheaper and if you take goodies along you usually get an additional chocolate discount I have found.

Certainly enough of each mold that you can make a decent sized batch in one go. One or two 6 kg Mol'dart melters, perhaps a 3 kg if you are going to do a lot of dipping. The guitar is going to make cutting quick and dirty - the rate limiting step is going to be the dipping! Frames for the ganache for the guitar. Caramel bars. Stainless tables, rolling racks, sheet pans. Fridge, freezer, 3 compartment sink or dishwasher and smaller sink. Heat gun, microwave, various offset spatulas, scrapers, microwave safe bowls, dipping forks, scales, thermometers Packaging. Containers for storing finished product. Airbrush if you are going to do any painted items. There is truly no limit!

Speaking with Renee at Chocolat-Chocolat in Montreal today - she will be again sending us wonderful stuff for the workshop as she has every year - and I will contact her the last week of April to let her know final numbers. It occurs to me that if people want to order from CC that they do so before the last week of April and ask them to put it in the shipment to me - I'll then bring it along to the workshop. Will save on shipping especially for those coming from across the border.

They have even more expensive ones than that!

Is this the sort of thing you are looking for?

Todd Wilbur - Top Secret Recipes.

I'm seeing it on Amazon.com