gap

I know you want to use just the honey, but as an idea, I make a standard milk chocolate ganache and then, when its emulsified and cool, incorporate the honey. I find this allows the honey flavour to come through - especially if you have a particularly strongly flavoured honey.

Citric acid is equal parts warm water and citric acid powder. Not sure what sort of pectin you have, but I think G pectin is pretty special stuff - you may be better off using the Boiron PDF recipes rather than Shott's if you are using standard pectin

As well as all the tips mentioned above, I also put gladwrap (clingwrap/plastic wrap) against the ice cream before I put the lid on. Dextrose or atomised glucose can also be good for keeping an ice-cream "scoopable". The book mentioned above (Frozen Desserts by Francisco Migoya - CIA) is great at explaining why different ingredients do what they do in ice cream. Edited to add: the book even has recipes for ice cream stabilisers which can also help with freezing issues.

A bit of bicarb soda can also help caramels to stop sticking as much. Depending how sticky they are it might not eliminate it, but it can help (along with Kerry's other suggestions)

How was the flavour of the ice cream - did the port come through well?

For chocolates in Melbourne I would second Ganache (which also has a few very good chocolate based petit gateaux). Cacao is good as well. Koko Black has some interesting things. The Haigh's store in the Block Arcade is interesting to visit - as lamington mentioned they have some centers that you don't see too often anymore and they are also the only chocolate retailer in Australia that makes their chocolate starting from the bean.

What about dehydrating them?

Keep em coming! It's a great book and has taught me a great deal about how/why things work the way they do. I'm making a lot of ice-creams at the moment (given the exceptionally hot weather we're having in the south-eastern parts of Australia), so I'll try and get a few of these recipes out as well

This may be a silly idea, but can you roll it between two silpats?

Make ANZAC biscuits http://www.aussieslang.com/features/anzac-biscuits.asp

It should be fine to use. May need to re-temper the chocolate but it can comfotably be taken up to 45-50 degrees when you're melting it. For what its worth, I keep my chocolate in an esky on days like we've been having recently.

Cool idea with the dry ice (pun intended). We were thinking of a few ways of building a cool air fan but dry ice hadn't occurred to us

I reckon its someone trying their luck. Our local TAFE college (technical college) uses that book and the whole course doesn't ost that much.

Just spent the day panning (literally about 7 hours just me and the machine) with macadameias and hazelnuts at chocolate school. By no means an expert - this was my first real experience - but we were using the Kitchen Aid attachement so I can give a few words of advice. It was also 45.1 degrees celcius today which made chocolate work pretty tough - even with an air conditioner. - We caramelised the nuts before coating. You need something before putting the chocolate on. - Re the Kitchen Aid mixer: the one we used didn't have anything on the inside, it was purely smooth. So we taped some hosepipe cut in 1/2 a third of the way around in three spots inside to cause the nuts to "bounce" a little - You need to have your hand in there to stop them sticking to the pan if its warm - The ideal is to have the nuts in, drizzle chocolate 7 degrees warmer than its working temperature into the nuts a little at a time and then hit them with cool air. We didn't have the cool air so it became using the hand inside the mixer to stop them sticking and then into the fridge to cool a little. Temperature is very important. - We used giuanduja to coat as well which was pretty neat - We finished all nuts (even dark chocolate) with milk chocolate before shining. The milk apparently helps them smooth out and "round" a little better edited to add; the instructor has done some great panning (he sells stuff out the front of the school) but he said you really do need the correct temperatures when working with the Kitchen Aid attachment unless you've got some way to put cold air into the pan

schneich - thanks as always. You always seem to find useful info for us all

I've just started teaching myself some more of the pastry basics and bought the Gisslen book and thought it was great. The CIA books are great as well - they have a pastry/baking one, frozen desserts one and chocolates/confections one.

I don't know how it would work with spraying, but when I finger-paint moulds in yellows/greens etc and then back off with dark, I always mix a bit of white chocolate into the coloured cocoa butter to help make the colour stand out a bit more. Like I said though, I'm not sure how that would work when you are spraying.

Oh, I didn't even notice that in the description. So to get that white line, would they brush in the dark chocolate, then brush a line of white chocolate over that, and then spray with dark chocolate, and then coat the molds with white? Sounds like a lot of work, but it probably wouldn't take all that long in reality... ← Hi emmalish - I think if you piped a line of milk/dark in and then sprayed, the spray would leave a slight build-up of the white next to the chocolate line. You could let that set and then back-off with white. Just a guess though.

My guess is they pipe the detail in first. Once you get the hang of it, its not as time consuming as you might think.

I can't see the image clearly, but it looks like maybe they just piped a chocolate line across the mould and then airbrushed behind, then made shells with the same chocolate as they used for the line. Edited to add: that might be why you get the white next to the chocolate line - it might be build-up from the spray.

There is an Asia-Pacific and a North American issue with different contents. You can read through back-issues of both at: http://pastryna.com/pastryna_magazines.htm (Click Next to scroll between the pages of back issues) I've read through a few and enjoyed them.

The guidelines I had at school were for ~34 degrees for spraying coloured cocoa butter and not fussed about tempering it first

Thanks Kerry - you always have your finger on the pulse (pun fully intended)

Following on from his longer form blog is Michael Laiskonis shorter form blog: http://www.mlaiskonis.typepad.com/

Kerry - you're amazing! My goodness you're a wealth of information! What I'm interested in is making hazelnut paste which I can then use to make gianduja. I would like to make both sweetened (hazelnut praline) and unsweetened (hazelnut paste). Yes, the store bought versions are quite runny which is what I would need. Sooooooo... does the Sumeet multi-grind actually give you smooth nut butters????!!! I see that it has a 1/2HP motor - pretty powerful. The Santha melangeur sold on Chocolate Alchemy has a 1/4HP motor. I know I'm not comparing apples to apples here but here's the million dollar question... which do you think would do a better job in making a true hazelnut paste (with very little discernable 'grit' - ie. VERY SMOOTH)? Wow, this is exciting! ← I know different countries have different "naming" conventions so I'm always careful when saying things like this but I think hazelnut paste usually refers to a pure nut paste (PNP) - ie., hazelnut paste is just ground hazelnuts, no added sugar as there is for almond paste. (Just in case you have a recipe calling for hazelnut paste)