Jill,

1) I don't use cream, just the chocolate, cocoa butter, sweetener, and sometimes flavoring. The flavorings have to be the ones meant for candy, which are oil-based, as opposed to the ones for baking, many of which are water based. In sweet treats there is a post suggesting that it might be possible to make milk chocolate by reducing heavy cream and adding it to the chocolate; the title of the post is "real chocolate". I haven't tried this because I like dark chocolate, but it sounded like a good idea.

2)You are right, I only used the paraffin in an attempt to make the keep the chocolate from melting at room temperature; once I found out how to temper the chocolate I didn't need it any more.

Tempering isn't hard, as long as you have time to concentrate on doing only that and you aren't trying to do three other things at the same time It's just a matter of following the directions. I let the water heat on my electric stove until it is hot but not boiling and let the chocolate and cocoa butter melt slowly, stirring it often with a wooden spoon.

3) I wouldn't use the Davinci syrups because they are water based and even a drop of water will cause the chocolate to "seize" and will ruin it.

4) see #1

5) www.botanistry.com has food grade cocoa butter in bulk, so you can buy a pound or whatever you want.

Do let me know how things go and what you think of the results. Good luck!

Karla