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I thought I'd post pictures of some of the chocolates I've made recently from the book. I've been following with keen interest Chris Hennes' work, especially since he started just last year and has exhibited a lot of skill. Tempering and dipping are problem areas for me, but I do feel I'm improving. Many of the tips in this topic have been very helpful. All of the slabbed ganaches were made in an 8" square pan lined with either plastic wrap or parchment. I have yet to find a place to buy the metal rods to make my own ganache frames. As a result the pieces are thicker than they should be, since a half recipe needs 72 square inches. There are more notes on my blog, but I'll just put a few words about each here: Apricot - This butter ganache was very, very soft and didn't set up properly. I also had trouble with tempering the milk chocolate for dipping, and with the too-small size of the squares (they kept falling off the fork!). Sesame Hexagons - I used a hexagonal ganache cutter to make these. My first time dipping a piece just up to the top, a technique I hadn't used before, but I am pleased with the cup-like effect it gives. Pear - This was very soft to work with. As mentioned in a previous comment, the flavour is quite subtle. Hazelnut Gianduja - I made a batch of the gianduja recipe and filled chocolate shells with it. I made the mistake of letting the milk chocolate accents set before filling with the dark chocolate, so there's a lot of crystallization, which mars the marbling effect. Habanos - This has been my most successful piece from this book so far. Both ganaches set up nicely, although the mango layer took a bit longer than I expected. This may have been due to excess water content (I cut the reducing time short).

I don't have a whole lot of experience with gluten-free baking either, but I did spend a few months trying various recipes out. In fact, I still have a lot of the flours so I'm continuing to experiment once in a while. The book I've been using, Gluten-Free Baking by Rebecca Reilly, gives the following basic gluten-free flour mix: 2 cups brown rice and/or chickpea flour (any proportion), 2/3 cup potato starch and 1/3 cup tapioca starch. As a rough guide, most of her recipes call for 1/2 tsp. of xanthan gum for each cup of GF flour. Even though she uses this basic mix in most of her recipes, there are still individual recipes that call for their own proportion of various GF flours. I'm sure you could just use the basic mixture, but I'm guessing she's experimented with individual baked goods and found that tweaking the proportions made for the best results. From my past experiments, I've found that you can't really get a comparable texture for yeast breads or even quick breads. For cookies (like biscotti) or waffles, I actually prefer the GF flour mixes as they produce a slightly crumbly texture.

In the thread that broadway mentions, there is a post containing my very favourite recipe (the first one). I think the secret there is the extended baking time (2.5 hrs) at a low temperature (275 F) which gives a deep banana flavour.

Does this book discuss making chocolate decorations? I just saw the Wybauw book on the subject, but it's expensive and not readily available.

Has anyone tried making the peppered pineapple using a recipe substituting Pomona's Universal pectin, similar to what was discussed for the strawberry-balsamic chocolates many posts back? I know gelatin won't set when there's fresh pineapple, don't know if pectin is adversely affected.

They are quite tasty. I made them this week, with my own caramel glaze as well. I used unsalted cashews and they were fine. More notes here.

I tried it a little while ago: It was very sweet, as expected, but I would have preferred another flavouring, like cardamom, lemon zest, etc. as well. The semolina filling is very creamy and quite different from a nut-based baklava.

Did anyone save an electronic copy of the Symphony in Black article I posted? The link is now broken and I wanted the recipe for the black sesame-green tea cheesecake.

Google found it here: Symphony in Black

I haven't tried the Bolzano Apple Cake below, but I've had it bookmarked for a long time because it sounds so good: I hope to make it in the near future. You can find the recipe by itself from a NY Times page here. The original recipe, along with many more about apples, comes from the fantastically produced All About Apples, a full-colour cookbook you can download as a PDF.

Cocoa Nests with Caramel Mousse

Here's some of the items I've made from Baking with Julia: Nectarine Upside-down Chiffon Cake Sunny-side-up Apricot Pastries

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Even though I haven't been successful, I've got a whole list of equipment stores now, many that I didn't know of before. Here are more places that didn't have it: * McCall's * Jolanta Interiors * The Cook's Place * Kitchen Essentials * Seafood Depot * Nella Cucina * Le Chef Complet * Dinetz * Academy of Culinary Arts Note that I didn't actually go to all of these stores, just called them and asked. The Italian bakeries I've been to just carry the imported pandoro loaves, no one seems to make it themselves. My instructors at George Brown already suggested the kitchen supply stores in the Spadina Chinatown and Kensington areas. Two places in the US sell it online: Sur La Table and Fante's. I also saw one on eBay. So those are options as well. But it's become like a scavenger hunt now to see if I can find it in Toronto

An update on my search. Unfortunately, I still haven't found the pan yet. Places in the GTA which do not carry it: * Golda's Kitchen * Pasquale Bros. * Consiglio's U-Save Centre * Tap Phong Trading Co. * Fortune Houseware * Nikolaou Restaurant Equipment * Cayne's Housewares * St. Lawrence Market

I'm interested in making pandoro, a sweet Italian yeast bread, typically made around Christmastime. It's like panettone, but made in a different shaped pan. The recipe I'm going to use comes from Carol Field's "The Italian Baker". Trouble is, I'm having a hard time finding the mold to make it in. She says that the tall star-shaped tin is the traditional pan to bake pandoro in. I've checked at Golda's Kitchen and Pasquale Bros. and a few other shops with no luck. Does anyone know of a retailer in the GTA, or a store that will ship to Canada? Sur La Table carries one, but I don't think they ship up here.