Jim D.

There are several things making it a challenge for me: I have been making the recipes that he suggests for each filling (for me that means just two so far). The first (a caramel with passion fruit, chocolate, and tarragon leaves) was very thick; the second--like Goldlilocks--was extremely fluid and required some major "adjustment"--though it did turn out OK after I added more chocolate, and it has a wonderful taste. Other than that it's mostly the techniques: The first was just airbrushing a mold, but what a mold: Chocolate World 1754. Dubovic says he chose it to present difficulties with airbrushing (and he succeeded). It's also to be painted all black, which means it shows every imperfection, every missed corner, every speck of dust. The second lesson was not in itself difficult, but required many steps (utilizing 6 different colors of cocoa butter), and of course there is a video to guide one (and show the student what the perfect result looks like). I have the lesson open on a iPad next to the counter where I am working--an iPad now with chocolatey fingerprints all over it. I would say a third challenge has been finding all the equipment and ingredients. One can make substitutions, but I decided to do what I could to find what he calls for (that may say more about me than about the course). Ever heard of Jin Xuan Oolong Milk Tea? I now have some of it. I could never have found everything without the guidance of Kerry, who is completing the whole course early because of her schedule--and always under the watchful eye of Amazon, ever willing to ship the smallest item (on which they could never be making money). It has been a huge help to me that the three of us on eGullet taking the course are constantly exchanging emails--where to find items, what to do about directions that seem puzzling, etc. The lessons do not have to be completed in sequence, but Dubovik has designed them to go from simple to complex. All of them are available from the first day of access. The detailed instructions for each lesson are available for students to download; the videos are available until one month after the end of the course. Photos of the chocolates made (by him) in each lesson are available for anyone to see on Dubovik's website (I love the name of the course: Pralinarium). We have to send photos of two chocolates each week for his evaluation. He also has a detailed section on how to take good photos of chocolates. As for posting mine, maybe....

When we signed up, Dubovik asked for our Instagram account information so that some students' work could be posted. I won't be holding my breath to see mine there. The course has been a challenge--and we are only in week 1!

So do you think this means it would be better if we mixed our own white? Perhaps already-mixed white should be sealed against moisture and refrigerated? Not long ago I came across (don't remember where) some research on a new white color in testing to replace titanium dioxide. It turns out that coloring things white is very important in the food industry and not just in decorating chocolates. There are also some concerns about titanium's impact on the human brain (which may explain a lot in my case).

Having a white without an offputting odor is the holy grail--mainly because white is used to create lighter colors and for backing other colors trying to cover dark chocolate. By "discovery kit" do you mean this was Power Flowers? I know what they are but have never used them. And when you say "making our own white," do you mean from titanium dioxide or from commercial powdered white cocoa butter? I always thought it was the titanium that contributed the bad odor and taste, but perhaps rancidity has been contributing to that.

Bob, Don't fall for the humility. I have the directions, and they are anything but simple. This course is daunting (probably for anyone but Kerry Beal).

You are right on the mark. Dubovik calls it "Outer Space." Kerry's version looks exactly like Dubovik's. This will be a hard act to follow.

Those look very nice. Did you use tape for the lines or paint them in freehand? Either way they are remarkably straight.

I don't make my own hazelnut paste (or pistachio--I do make pecan and almond because I can those smooth enough in the food processor). I use Cacao Barry's, but as I don't have room to store the big pail in the freezer/refrigerator, I buy it from L'Epicérie in smaller containers--obviously it's been repackaged and I am at the mercy of those who remix and package it. "I'll allow you your preference for raw pistachios": You must be using "you" in the sense of "everybody" because I am one who lightly toasts pistachios (we have discussed this). I tested my preference again recently and was confirmed in my view that toasting makes them tastier. And, of course, hazelnuts cry out to be roasted/toasted.

For gianduja, Greweling specifies 2:1 praline to chocolate, and it still firms up quite a lot. You are right that it is the praline paste and the coconut oil that soften things. Greweling's ratios for meltaway are (roughly) 1:1.5:4 coconut oil:praline paste:chocolate. You can see the proportion of chocolate is very large. I need to play around with increasing the amount of praline. One additional factor over which I have no control is that the consistency of praline paste varies a great deal, even when the hazelnuts and oil are well mixed.

I wanted a bonbon filling that remains somewhat soft (unlike gianduja, which gets rather firm) so I substituted Greweling's praline meltaway for gianduja. He calls for milk chocolate, but I used dark. I was very disappointed in the lack of hazelnut taste in the result; I don't know if milk chocolate would have made it all that different. I compared his recipes for this meltaway and hazelnut gianduja, and the amount of hazelnut praline paste in the latter is much greater. I am wondering if there is any formula to calculate how much coconut oil can be used in a meltaway before it refuses to thicken enough. In other words, I want to increase the praline paste to chocolate ratio and assume I would also need to up the amount of coconut oil.

Never having smelled it, I don't know what it smells like. I think you are correct, though, that it has a somewhat chocolate smell, but (IMHO) not in a good way. I am not a fan of El Rey. I have a kilo that I can't imagine ever using in any way. A minority view, I know.

Yes, definitely use a deodorized one. I find that even the deodorized has a somewhat offputting smell and taste. I can only begin to imagine what the other is like.

Thank for the lead. Since the course begins next week, I had to go ahead and found dry colorants at Chef Rubber. I hear that mixing them can be difficult. Do you have any hints? I am not looking forward to this procedure. I shouldn't have asked Dubovic if they were required.

Was this the Greweling recipe? If so, I love the flavors in that--and the crunch factor is very high. How did you cut the pieces? That is one hurdle since a guitar is (IMHO) out of the question, and it's hard to cut through the sesame layer neatly with a knife.

If you haven't seen the Keylink videos, they are worth a look. I'll look for others when I have more time, but if you go to Youtube and do a search for something like "decorating chocolates," you will find more. Then there are the Grex airbrush videos on using an airbrush to decorate (not specifically chocolates, but still useful).

Among other things, I use the summer months to research new flavors for chocolate fillings and new techniques for decorating them. If you haven't seen it, look at the lengthy eGullet thread on flavor combinations and (as you undoubtedly know already) there are zillions of videos on technique. I am fortunately in a situation where I can cool the kitchen to an acceptable temp and humidity (good thing as I have a wedding in mid-August requiring 800 pieces). I have learned many things over the summers by rereading recipes I thought I knew and techniques I thought I had mastered (Greweling, Notter, Wybauw). These ideas are, of course, predicated on the assumption that you cannot bear to stay away from chocolate for an entire summer. You could, as a last resort, seek out a girlfriend/boyfriend with an air-conditioned kitchen and a high tolerance for mess.

I have tried lots of things to make pear taste more like pear. I make pear purée myself so that I can get as much of the fruit in it as possible (as opposed to just the juice). Then when I make the PdF (using Pomona's pectin, thus less cooking), I include some puréed dried pear. Finally I add some "pear essence" (a distilled fruit flavor from France) that boosts the flavor a bit more. Even with all that, the flavor was still fairly faint. But I kept at it and made the PdF one layer in a bonbon matched with an almond-pear cream (Kerry Beal's recipe) that includes Poire Williams (pear brandy) and some more pear purée. Almond really goes with pear. But I am intrigued with matching it with caramel and will give that a try.

I can now report that the bonbons I feared might cling to the mold did not. In spite of an adverse environment when spraying the shells, 71 out of 72 fell out of the molds with little coaxing, and the 72nd came out after a few minutes in the freezer. As everyone ends up concluding, there's just no explaining it--and one can go crazy trying. When you step back a bit and consider what we are doing (forcing a part of cacao to do things it was never intended to do, adding colorants to it, blowing it through a device never meant for that purpose), it's a miracle it works at all!

After I did the conversion from C to F, I realized how low that temp is (I can now think in grams, but the temp thing is beyond me). If the theory of crystallization of cocoa butter is correct, then wouldn't the undesirable crystal types start reforming at that temp (with no seed being used to encourage Type V crystals to form)? The cocoa butter also starts getting really viscous at that temp. A couple of days ago I may have reached that low temp accidentally because the humidity was so bad in the basement (my spraying area) that I had to cool off the room more than usual and the c.b. really thickened. We'll see if that worked later today when I unmold. I'm sure we will be providing reviews of the Dubovik course. Almost daily on Instagram he has been posting new stunning designs that aren't covered directly in the classes, but I'm hoping to learn a little about how he does what he does. It is daunting to attempt to learn those techniques from someone so talented.

@Choco Monster, I keep telling your mother it's time to give up her day job and concentrate on this obvious talent. I hope you enjoyed the workshop.

Some beautiful work done at the workshop. I was particularly intrigued by the decoration shown in the photo below. Anyone know who did it--and how the beautiful pastel effect was created?

Since he stresses tabling so much and implies that's what we will be doing (a marble or granite slab is on the required equipment list), I was just planning to go ahead and use silk (we don't have to video our process, do we? ). I just posted a comment to him briefly explaining the EZtemper and describing how I use it. We'll see what he says. After all, he should have one in his kitchen, shouldn't he? I was thinking it might be helpful if the three of us from eGullet had email exchanges with notes and comments as the course goes on.

I was going to ask you about that. He mentions three methods of tempering, including Mycryo. Does he know about the EZ or have you told him? Since I assume we will be working with small amounts of chocolate at a time, I was planning to use cocoa butter silk for tempering (rather than the mess of table tempering).

I try to melt my colored cocoa butter slowly so that it stays in temper, but if I overdo it (easy to do in a microwave), I add a dab of cocoa butter silk from the EZtemper. I always check the temper before I start using the cocoa butter. The method you describe Andrey as using (which is, of course, the traditional method of tempering) seems like too much trouble to me (and too messy) when I have silk ready and it does the trick almost immediately. Practically everyone says that spraying c.b. through an airbrush tempers it, but I want to have more certainty (agitation of the c.b. is only one factor in tempering). I have enough trouble with chocolates sticking in the mold to add yet another possible cause.

And how did you get the nice stripe?