So, I figured out how to make Chocolate Crème Brûlée. It uses all the same ingredients from my previous Crème Brûlée, but with a couple of variations.
YOU WILL NEED:
- Half a cup of chocolate. Whatever chocolate you like, I used dark chocolate chocolate chips, but a little too much. It was super rich. Too rich. It gave me a tummy ache. Be sure to break your chocolate up into pieces or use chips.
ADDITIONAL STEPS!
-Rather than adding in the heavy cream to the egg mixture in cold, you need to put it into a pot over medium heat and wait for the cream to start simmering. Once it's started simmering, turn the heat way way down to almost off and add the chocolate. Whisk the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is all melted and the mixture is smooth.
-Add the choco-cream mixture to the egg mixture real, real slowly. Better yet, add it in a little bit at a time and whisk it up real good.
-I found that my creams turned out perfectly consistency wise as I left them in the oven for a little under an hour at 295. The tops of the choco-egg-cream mixture may be a bit stiff when you take them out of the oven in their water bath, but trust me, underneath that, it's delicious, burnt-choco-cream goodness.
Just don't use dark chocolate, unless you REALLY love dark chocolate. I'm not a fan, it makes my stomach hurt.
LAST MADE: Couple Fridays ago.
INJURIES: None. Unless you count the tummy ache.
RESULT: Delicious, but super rich.
FOR NEXT TIME: Milk, or white chocolate next time. Maybe white chocolate and macadamia nuts. Mmm.
Anyhoo. On to the Alcohol-based Easter treats! WOO! This recipe was all the more fun for one thing: I now have an electric mixer! Well, I merely found our old one and cleaned it. Turns out it was not so hard to find - it was in the cabinet under the drawer where the spoons are. I get stuff out of that cabinet all the time. If I had merely turned my head slightly, I would have seen it there, but nope. I did not. But I have it now and it will help me make delicious things.
For Easter I definitely wanted to make some sort of chocolate mousse because...nothing says Easter like chocolate mousse? Christ is risen, have some mousse. That's in the Bible, right?
Right?
Anyway, I first off thought I'd make some orange chocolate mousse in orange cups, but...too hard, too much money, and I didn't want to have to squeeze oranges again. Plus, I really wanted to make an alcohol based treat. That was also mousse. So I dug through my cookbooks and found this recipe for Bailey's Chocolate Mousse, and I made it Easter themed.
SOURCE: A cookbook I bought at Ikea. Cue the joke: Conan On The Horsemeat Scandal/
YOU WILL NEED:
- An electric mixer (hee! I have one now! It functions!)
- Mixing bowls
- One of those cake decorator things with the bag and the nozzles and stuff.
- A pan
- A Whisk
- Various spoons and such
- Patience - this is another overnight recipe!
INGREDIENTS:
- About 1/3 cup of Bailey's Irish Cream (the original calls for 5 tablespoons, which is thereabouts...I added extra, obviously, as it is a holiday and I wanted to be extra celebratory)
- 1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
- Two and a half or three rows of a Hershey's baking size chocolate bar (the original calls for 2 3/4 oz of chocolate, but I am not smart enough to figure out how much of one 12 oz chocolate bar that is. I just tossed in what I thought appropriate. And hadn't eaten yet). I used milk chocolate, but you could use whatever flavor you like.
- Robins Eggs (not real robin's eggs, obviously, but the delicious, whopper based Easter Candy. Nothing says Christ is Risen like chocolate malt balls! Those are in the Bible, too, right?). Since it's not Easter anymore, plain ol' whoppers or ferrero rocher would work, too).
- Whipped Cream, for topping
- OPTIONAL! Mint extract and green food coloring, to make minty whipped cream.
TO MAKE!
1. Put your heavy whipping cream into your pan. Bring it to a simmer/almost boil. Mix in the chocolate, and whisk til the chocolate is all melted and smooth and stuff.
2. Pour your hot cream and chocolate mixture into a mixing bowl. Add in the Baileys (assuming you didn't drink it. If you did, in fact, drink the Bailey's you poured into the measuring cup, just pour some more. And find a proper glass to drink from. Like a decorative egg cup. For Easter.) and mix together with the whisk.
3. Put some plastic over the mixing bowl, then stick it in the fridge overnight.
4. Next day, using your handy-dandy super amazing awesome handmixer, beat the mixture until it becomes stiff and mousse-like. I used the faster settings on my hand mixer to accomplish this.
5. If you want to top off your mousse with minty whipped cream instead of regular whipped cream, then just mix your whipped cream (however much you think is appropriate - my mousse mixture served five, in the end, keep that in mind), some mint extract (about a teaspoon or less) and some green food coloring until it's as green as you like.
5. If you want your mousse to look fancy, you can force it into those awful cake decorator bags then pipe it out into the cups in a fancy design - but I found that was just a good way to make my hands super sticky. But if you like, go ahead. Scoop your mousse into five cups. Top with the minty whipped cream. Then top with some robin's eggs and it looks like you have dirt and grass and Easter eggs. Why? Because Jesus and the Easter Bunny said so.
I would recommend covering your mousse cups in plastic once they're done and letting them sit in the fridge for a bit before serving them. Or not.
LAST MADE: Easter.
INJURIES: None, save to my pride when my brother refused his and my sister took one bite and complained that it was "too watery" and it "needed to be put in the fridge." I slaved for hours and hours and *grumble grumble grumble grumble*
RESULT: Mmmmmmmmmmmm so good more please!
FOR NEXT TIME: Do not use whipped cream in a compressed can. Get it from a tub. The compressed can whipped cream does not hold its integrity when mixed with mint extract and food coloring. Learn from my mistakes.
For next time...cheese pillows!
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