Daring Bakers: Edible Containers

Wow! What a month. April has been a big, busy month for me - both food-releated and otherwise. We just got done with a fantastic Easter and now I am working on preparing food and a cake for 100 people for a retirement party for my father-in-law - Congrats to him. As you can see from the title the Daring Bakers are doing an edible container just like the Daring Cooks last month. If you haven't already - check out my last post. It was the first I (I think ) Daring Cooks that was kind of a contest, and to my surprise, I am one of the finalists. There was a lot of good competition so it is a big honor for me. If you haven't already, and if it is before May 17, go to The Daring Kitchen and vote at the top of the page.

Now on to this months challenge. This month Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz challenged us to make an edible container for a maple mousse. Evelyne is from Quebec and gives a very good description of how maple syrup is part of the culture on her blog. Well again I wanted to try to be unique. There are lots of things that go with maple - bacon, nuts, pancakes, squash, sweet potatoes, chocolate - the possibilities are endless. That is part of the reason I am posting this on the last day possible - too many ideas.

The idea I finally settled on was something from my childhood. I grew up in NY and now live in MN - two of the top three maple syrup producers in the US and one of my favorite things as a child was maple sugar candy. If you have never had it - it is just maple syrup and maybe some butter and it is very soft and creamy - just melts in your mouth. I wanted to do the same thing only as a bowl. Easier said than done. I think it took me five tries. The recipes on the internet said to heat to softball stage but I could not get it out of the container without cracking it. I finally ended up using a small silicone measuring bowl for the mold and heating the syrup up close to hard ball stage - it worked like a charm then.

Even though I am crazy about all things maple I thought maybe I needed something else with my maple mousse in a maple bowl. I decided to put small chocolate bowl (not easy either) in the maple bowl and I am using two kinds of mousse. Every month I see someone in the Daring Bakers use Nutella in their challenge so I decided it was now my turn. I thought it would go perfect with the maple.

The results were really good. The maple mousse was really good - a nice maple / buttery taste and smooth texture. I think the texture was much nicer than most mousse I have had. I think the nutella mousse was great too - I am sure my wife liked it better. It had that great nutella flavor and it went very nice with the maple from the mousse and the bowl.

While the maple bowl was not quite as I imagined it - it didn't have that creamy texture of the candies I remember - it still was easy to eat and lots of great maple flavor. I assume the difference in texture was because of having to take it to the higher temperature since my first attempts were much softer.

I'll post my recipe for the Nutella mousse here but if you would like to check out the maple mousse you can find that recipe in the challenge posted here.

Nutella Mousse

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon gelatin
• 1/4-1/2 cup nutella
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Put 2 tablespoons of cream in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the top. Set aside to soften gelatin.
2. Whip the remaining cream.
3. Add nutella a few tablespoons at a time and beat to combine. You can use 1/4-1/2 cup nutella to suit your taste.
4. Add the cream/gelatin mixture and combine.
5. Put the mousse into serving bowls and chill until set (about 1-2 hours).