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Kerry, Thanks for organizing this! Great to see the plans coming together. Any idea yet on pricing for Saturday's dinner and for the conference? Also, do you think we might get a discount on purchases at Tomric?

May I ask who that is and where? Or should I already know? Rather sure Edward J is taking this class with Derrick Tu Tan Pho. The same Derrick who will be presenting at the 2011 Chocolate & Confectionary Conference!

Two suggestions: Replace the canola oil in your recipe with butter. That way you have a fat that is solid at room temperature. Try the recipe without any canola oil at all. Just make 1 1/2 times the recipe so that you have enough glaze to cover your cake.

Happy Birthday Robyn! That cake looks delicious.

The At Home recipes do use ingredients that you are more likely to find at home (marshmallow fluff instead of frappe, corn syrup instead of glucose, etc.). There is some recipe overlap but there are quite a few new recipes and different variations in the At Home book.

AmritaBala, both the chocolate cupcake and the vanilla buttercream recipes can be found on Chockylit's blog (I used the recipes from her February 2008 entry. The vanilla buttercream is of the rather standard butter, powdered sugar and milk variety. I like this one because it is not super sweet.

Cupcakes.

My vote would be for the wonderful sushi place but if the majority would like Italian that is fine by me too.

Thank you for the information Lapin. I figured there must be an "official" way to connect the molds together but could not find those types of clips on the Tomiric or Chocolat Chocolat websites (thought they would have them since they sell Chocolate World molds). When I get a chance to try out the molds, I will try the chopstick solution. If that doesn't work for me, maybe I'll try out the clips you linked to.

Thanks Kerry, I'll look through my chopsticks and see if any of them fit.

Just got a Chocolate World double mold, CW1513. How do I clamp these together? It is not the type of mold that will clamp together with binder clips. I suspect something goes through the holes in the middle of the mold to tie everything together... but what should I use? Thanks for your help! If it will help, I can take a picture of the mold and post it.

The 2009 menu sounds delicious (I remember those fabulous dinner photos that were posted) but I'll bet that anything the chef makes will be wonderful. Does the chef want to experiment with something new this year? I'm up for just about anything for the Saturday dinner.

Hilton Garden Inn sounds good to me too.

Thanks for the information Kerry. If we don't have an equipment demo with Tomric, I will definitely phone an order in to them for pickup. Looking forward to the conference!

Does Tomric have a retail store or is it all catalog sales? I would like to get some more molds and thought I could stop in at Tomric to get them (and avoid shipping fees).

Meant to post this sooner but better late than never. Baked Dorie Greenspan's World Peace cookies and Rose Levy Beranbaum's Spritz Butter Cookies (from Rose's Christmas Cookies cookbook).

Finally baked the World Peace Cookies this past December, they are wonderful! Baked them again for a New Year's Party. This weekend I made the butterscotch pudding (with Oban single malt), quite delicious. I sampled the pudding before adding the scotch, also quite good. The audience will determine which version I make in the future.

dystopiandreamgirl it is all lovely. I especially like the vanilla orchid. Happy New Year to you too!

And here is a great one about cupcakes... http://cupcakeblog.com/ Have made a few of her recipes and enjoyed them!

I made the Lattes on page 260. Very happy with how they turned out, wonderful coffee flavor. Had to make a few ingredient substitutions based on what was in the house but don't think that they changed the flavor profile or texture too much. Did not include hazelnuts, used espresso powder instead of instant coffee and used 1 ounce of heavy cream and 3 ounces of butter instead of 4 ounces of heavy cream. Also played around some and made molded chocolates with homemade brandied cherries inside... first try at this combination, need to do some additional tweaking to get the texture and flavor right.

A great site for cupcake ideas is the Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit. She does some filled cupcakes and has lots of interesting flavor combinations.

I am planning to attend. Was thinking about driving... but maybe I can ride with RobertM!

Congratulations on the new ice cream maker! Please let us know how you like it once you get a chance to put it through its paces.

Thank you for the suggestions dougal. I have contacted Lello customer service and they gave me the phone number for repairs. Unfortunately there is only one repair center and it is in New Jersey (far enough away that I would have to ship the machine). They appear to be a small and possibly extremely disorganized shop... will try calling them again to see if I can get beyond being placed on hold and reach a person to talk about my ice cream machine problems. Thought about bringing it to someone local but not sure they would look at it. The Lello is a sealed unit. Does not look like it is easy to service. But this is worth looking into. Still checking into all the "easy" solutions. But based on my experiences with customer service and authorized repairs, I am leaning towards the compressor based Cuisinart model as a replacement. Unfortunately it has mixed reviews. Thank goodness there is a fabulous gelato shop a few blocks away.

Good to hear that Mitch's (weinoo) Lello ice cream machine sill works well. I purchased the Lello 4090 (2 quart) in 2007. Brought it out for ice cream making this season and it no longer produces ice cream in 40 minutes. Last batch took 3 hours. Still makes good ice cream just taking far too long. Have any other Lello owners had problems after a few years of ownership or did I buy a lemon? Want to stay with a compressor style ice cream maker but trying to figure out if this one can be repaired and if can't be repaired, do I stick with Lello or buy from another manufacturer. Any advice?