Jim D.

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?

Bob, Google tells me "BLB" can mean a Binary Large Object--or a Blue Letter Bible--or Bare Legged Beauties. None of those seems to fit the photo. Clarification, please. Jim Dutton

I have certainly experienced the difficulty of getting a correct measurement when using Morton's kosher salt--1 teaspoon of it vs. 1 teaspoon of Morton's table salt--very different volumes (when using the metric system, it would be easier). Thanks for clarifying why Diamond is preferable. Do you use Diamond rather than sea salt or employ both for different purposes? When I make salted caramel, my experience is that ordinary table salt imparts a much harsher, saltier flavor than the Maldon sea salt I use.

Could you say a little more about why kosher salt is better than table salt?

I just took another look at the introductory video. Andrey's airbrush is an Iwata Kustom. He recommends a nozzle between 0.35 and 0.5mm and a gravity-feed rather than a side-feed or siphon model.

Here is a link to the compressor I have: California Air Tools. I have a Grex airbrush (I wrote a review of it elsewhere on eGullet), but I don't know any reason your Badger would not work with a compressor like this one because, regardless of what PSI the Badger specifies, the compressor can be adjusted to that level. I have never had any problems with this compressor providing enough air. It is, as these things go, quieter than most. You may wish to find something equivalent locally (and perhaps at a better price). By the way, I wasn't sure I was going to confess this after the comments on Andrey's pricing, but I have already signed up. I have asked lots of questions that were not covered in the material online about requirements for the classes. You should be able to find those questions and the answers on the website in case you have any. There are quite a few supplies that he said are not essential, but I decided to find as many as I could in the time remaining before the course starts. Luster dust was not mentioned online, but in the introductory video (which I have watched) he mentions that, so I wrote him. I don't know whether he himself is actually answering, but the responses have been very quick. One thing to watch out for: My payment process was a bit complicated. Using a credit card for a charge in Belarus to an entity called "Lililove.me" alerted the security troops at Visa (and I'm glad it did, but it did take a while to get the payment approved).

I have also gotten the crystals, but have no idea how to prevent them. Is this Greweling's recipe? I'm about to make it in a few days. I have had the problem in the past of having the DDL be rather thin. It can seem thick when it has been cooked, but when I stir it a bit, it thins out. Did you have that happen? I am a little concerned about its shelf life.

Definitely worth trying. It reminded me of a question someone had on another forum (I think it was The Chocolate Life) who was seeking a way to make dark chocolate shells not so firm (you know, without that snap that we all work so hard to attain).

I completely agree. I have tried to soften the gianduja by adding more nuts (or less chocolate), but it still hardens. Don't you think there must be a spot somewhere in the middle where the complete gianduja remains soft? When I bought some Valrhona (already-made) gianduja in bar form, it softened immediately in my hands, but as you say, it still doesn't offer that contrast with the shell.

I would strongly recommend Notter's Art of the Chocolatier. He has a lot of recipes that I use frequently: lemon, lime, mint, pistachio, yuzu, and a wonderful recipe for a two-layer combination of raspberry and dark chocolate flavored with orange. His salted caramel is my basic caramel recipe.

Sorry for you--but thanks for letting me know. Unrelated observation, but I find the smell of burnt chocolate really horrible. Not at all what one might imagine. Maybe it's just the money going up the chimney that I smell.

I have been using my Nordicware plastic bowls for melting chocolate for some time now and have come across a possible issue with them. To be honest, I don't know whether it is the bowls or user error that is causing the problem. I have now burned chocolate twice using the bowls, something I have never done before. Certainly it never happened with the heavy Corningware baking dishes I was using previously. I have enjoyed the new bowls so much--the largest one can hold a lot of chocolate and weighs practically nothing, so it's easy to move from the microwave across the room to the counter. I have had to resort to using shorter intervals of microwaving, even though at times no melting appears to have occurred between one zap and the next. Is there such a difference between plastic and glass in the microwave that would explain the issue?

I agree. For myself, while I find classes taught in completely equipped kitchens (ateliers?) of chocolatiers dazzling experiences (that description is no exaggeration in the case of Melissa Coppel), I have trouble translating what I learn there to my own space. Unlike Melissa, I don't have 3 Selmi tanks filled with perfectly tempered chocolate ready at all times or shelves with practically every ingredient one could possibly want stocked and meticulously labeled. I have to learn to work with what I have. And I wonder whether an online course might be better for someone like me. I will find out as I definitely intend to enroll in the Savour online courses, which are quite modestly priced and remain available forever. As for comparing Dubovik's pricing with Coppel's, yes, it is a definite plus to have direct contact with the instructor (as long as the class is not too large) and this is something I would love to do, but her prices are quite substantial and then there is the cost of airfare and a hotel room in Las Vegas to consider.