Baking Basics: How to make homemade chocolate dessert cups

Homemade Chocolate Dessert Cups Filled with Mousse

This past week I had to bring dessert to a holiday gathering and short on time I quickly threw together what you see here. Luckily, I had some leftover pumpkin caramel mousse that I froze from this post. Before you go wrinkling your nose on me at the mention of frozen, let me say, mousse freezes quite well and can be kept up to 6-8 weeks without any compromise in taste and texture.The left over mousse was originally intended for some pumpkin cupcakes, but these homemade chocolate dessert cups beat it to the front of the line.

When I say easy—I’m talking melt some chocolate in the microwave, grab a small paint brush and a candy form and just start painting the chocolate on the walls of the form. Don’t worry about making beautiful smooth strokes, no one is going to see the inside.

There is no recipe for this post, just a quick holiday idea for some party “wow”.

A few notes:

• Click here for the Pumpkin Caramel Mousse recipe.
• You can melt your chocolate by microwave or by stove top. For this recipe I used the microwave.
• Since chocolate is very temperature sensitive, try to stay away from sticking a cold metal spoon into warmed chocolate if you use the microwave method as it can change the texture and temperature of the chocolate quickly. I use BPA free plastic forks for stirring melted chocolate.
• If you are melting chocolate chips, remember that they are made to keep their form during baking, so make sure to stir them during each 30 second interval to check for the correct melted texture.
• Make extra as there are bound to be a few broken chocolate dessert cups.
• The mold I used is from Bake it Pretty.

Directions for making homemade chocolate dessert cups:

1. Stove top method: Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl above simmering water (not directly on top) and gently stir until the chocolate melts and becomes shiny.
2. Microwave method: Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl in the microwave and melt in 30 second intervals. Stirring each time you open the microwave. Continue heating until chocolate is shiny.
3. Place melted bowl of melted chocolate over warm water as you work.
4. Paint inside of mold with the chocolate, making sure it that it is not too thin or the chocolate will more readily break when you tap it out. Transfer chocolate painted molds to the to the freezer for 10minutes. Chocolate is ready to be tapped out once it starts to pull away from the walls of the form.
5. Fill forms as you prefer.