April 2011 Daring Bakers Challenge: Edible Bowls and Why I Hate Idaho Falls

It’s April 27! Do you know what that means?

It means that I shouldn’t have seen this on my rental car yesterday.

Snow? Seriously? &*%^&$ you, Idaho Falls.

Obnoxious weather experiences associated with business travel aside, April 27 means that it’s time for blog posts describing completed Daring Bakers Challenges. And so I bring you my take on the April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge, which was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

In undertaking this challenge, I made a major change by quartering the recipe. I didn’t have an opportunity to disposition the product at a party or other gathering, so I decided that the best approach would be to make a very small batch. First up, I made four cute little edible nutty chocolate bowls.

Edible Nutty Chocolate Bowls
3/4 cups blanched almonds
1 egg white, beaten, at room temp
1 tablespoon sugar
2 ounces very finely chopped chocolate

Grind almonds and sugar in a food processor until coarsely ground. Remove from food processor, add finely ground chocolate. Take extra care to ensure that the texture of the almond-sugar mixture and the chopped chocolate is just so.

Add in egg white, mix until uniform. Line four muffin pan cavities with aluminum foil and spread press a quarter of the mixture along the bottom and sides of each lined cavity.

And then, if your aunt and uncle love you and got you a compact convection oven for Christmas, use this tiny but powerful little thing to bake the edible bowls.

If your aunt and uncle don’t love you, just use a normal oven to bake at 350° F for 15 minutes. Allow bowls to fully cool and then unmold.

Beautiful, isn’t it? They’re so tiny and could really be filled with anything to make a cute little dessert for two. Like for a date or something.

Do people cook for each other for dates? I wouldn’t know. But what do I know? I know that I filled these little guys with maple mousse and that it wasn’t half bad in the end.

Maple Mousse

1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 large egg yolks
1 scant teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup whipping cream

As a former synchronized swimmer and current synchronized swimming coach and national judge, I was delighted to see this ingredient.

Why? Because it’s what synchronized swimmers use to keep their hair in place during routine competition.

For real. But that little package of knox got used to make mousse instead. Here’s how.

Whisk an egg yolk while bringing maple syrup to a boil. Pour a bit of the hot syrup into the yolk while whisking, then add mixture to remaining syrup and whisk until well mixed. Measure 1 tablespoon of cream in a small dish and sprinkle with gelatin. Let rest five minutes, then microwave for 5-second intervals until gelatin has completely dissolved. Whisk mixture into maple syrup mixture and set aside. Whisk occasionally for 30 minutes, until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten egg white.

Whip the remaining cream; fold a quarter of the whipped cream into the syrup mixture, then fold into remaining whipped cream. Refrigerate at least one hour.

I had plans to pipe the mousse into the edible bowls to make it look pretty. But after 2 hours in the refrigerator, my mousse looked like this.

Nix the piping. Just fill the bowls.

And that’s a wrap.

Would you make tiny edible dessert bowls to dress up the ending to a dinner for two? Or would you be like me and spend your Saturday night cleaning and doing laundry instead?