Joy of Country Living

I usually don’t like making anything too labor intensive – especially around the holidays when things are already crazy. For example one year I made a gingerbread house from scratch and another year I built a Christmas Tree from star shaped cookies. . . the cookies were graduated in size; stacked one on top of another; all frosted green. For some things in life once is enough. Guess I must have been feeling a little challenged this year – so thought I’d try my hand at edible chocolate ‘cups’ that could be filled with something – ice cream? pudding? cake?

I first bought a package of chocolate ‘CandiQuick’ candy coating and a package of foil muffin cups at the store. I planned to fill my chocolate cups  with cherry flavored ice cream – but now that I’m writing this I just had a thought – wouldn’t vanilla ice cream with raspberry Chambord Liquer poured over it be wonderful with a couple of fresh raspberries on top…and maybe a mint leaf on the plate?

This was my first attempt so I only melted half of the chocolate in the microwave (fortunately) following – I thought – the package directions.

Word of caution: you should know that the chocolate does NOT get liquefied when heated – it only gets soft.   But since I didn’t know that – I continued to ‘nuke’ the chocolate – basically cooking it until it was beyond stirring.  It looked like a bad batch of fudge. Tossed that out and started over. This time I microwaved the remaining chocolate for the 45 seconds recommended – and stopped. It was thick but pliable enough to get into the foil muffin cups.

The foil cups I bought came with paper liners which I tossed – figured the foil wouldn’t stick – the paper might.   Spooned enough melted chocolate into the cups to cover the bottom and sides  using a spoon . . . but I’m thinking a brush might work just as well or better.   It was a little hard to keep an even level of chocolate – particularly in the bottoms.  Placed the chocolated muffin cups  in a low dish and chilled in the refrigerator until hard. This didn’t take long and once they were firm, I carefully peeled off the outer foil wrapper. I was somewhat surprised that this was as easy as it was. The chocolate cups  kept their shape and  didn’t crack or break.  Filled them up with the cherry ice cream and served.

This is something you could easily make ahead and keep in the freezer to serve the next day. If I have another go at this, think I’ll try melting the chocolate in either the oven or a double-boiler – for some reason seems to me it would be easier on the chocolate.