The Distracted Cook and the Maple Mousse

The Distracted Cook had never heard of Maple Mousse before, much less ever thought about making one  and serving it up as dessert. But this month's challenge from The Daring Baker was about to change all of that!

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge 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!

Trying to decide how to make the edible container took a good amoung of thought which resulted in some pretty crazy ideas. But finally one was chosen and it was the coconut one. With all those egg whites it just seemed a natural to use them in the container. So, some sugar, some coconut, and those egg whites and we were off to the races.

This is what they looked like before they went into the oven to bake and brown:

And here is what they looked like after the first 10 minutes in the oven - not quite right:

So back to the drawing board we went and this was the final outcome:

They are resting, upside down, until they are completely cooled.

After this was done, and while they were cooling, it was time for The Maple Mousse adventure. First the ingredients were gathered - not a lot of things to fool around with here!

Bring that maple syrup to a boil, then let it cool for a few seconds while incorporating a bit into the beaten egg yolks (this brings the egg yolks up to a warm temperature so they don't "fry" when I put them into the pan of syrup.)

The gelatin goes into a bit of the cream to dissolve, then into the microwave to be sure it is dissolved!  Then this goes into the egg and syrup mixture and it sits for a while - until it is thickened and ready for the next step.

Now the fun part comes --- adding the rest of the cream which has been whipped.

After all the whipped cream is folded in, the pan goes into the refrigerator for at least an hour. Then it is time to put the Maple Mousse into our little bite-size containers! Yes, it's party time!

After looking at them sitting on the plate, I decided they needed something for a little contrast. Bacon! Bacon goes with maple - so let's chop up some cooked bacon and sprinkle it on top!

Back to the plate for our delicious bites, and we are almost finished. Here they are ready to join the party:

While these are certainly delicious as they are, there are some problems that The Distracted Cook has with the way she made them. The containers are lovely but Oh! Too Sweet! Next time half the amount of sugar and maybe some nuts into the mixture. The mousse itself is really quite flavorful, but it is also on the sweet side. I am thinking that tomorrow morning the remaining mousse left in the pot will go on top of some pancakes or waffles - that will be fantastic.


If you would like to have a mousse or two in your kitchen, join us at The Daring Kitchen - the recipes along with many wonderful pictures are waiting to welcome you!

It's In The Basket

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at The Daring Kitchen.

This was a really fun challenge and as soon as The Distracted Cook read it a lot of ideas started flying across the horizon. Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Snacks? The opportunities are unlimited! Hooray for Renata and a great big Thank You from The Distracted Cook.

After sitting and gazing over my cup of cafe au lait for many minutes, I started hauling things out of the pantry and the cabinets. I finally settled on Breakfast! That should be fun. But where to go from there. After looking over some of the ideas that Renata had shown us, it was a toss-up between scrambled eggs in something or other, or a poached egg. Or, maybe it should work from the inside out and start with a container of eggs? See .... there are just too many ideas for someone as distractable as The Distracted Cook.

After making some biscuit dough, The Distracted Cook cuts and shapes it to fit into baking cups so that they will bake up into cute little containers like this:

Now it is time to start thinking about what we are going to put into these cute biscuit baskets or biskets. A slice of tomato, some bacon, some cheese, and an egg sound good. Either a poached egg or a scrambled egg. Let see what we get!


First we'll put some cheese in the bisket and some cooked chopped bacon and slide it back in the oven to warm and melt the cheese.

Now we slide a poached egg into the bisket and give it a dash of salt and pepper.

Then a slice of tomato, another sprinkle of cheddar and some green for garnish! Chopped basil is always great with eggs and tomato. Doesn't this look really great?

Now to take a bite just to be sure it's as good on the inside as it looks on the outside. 

If you want to have fun with the rest of the Daring Cooks, just go to The Daring Kitchen and join us!