We opted for berry filled chocolate cups as our dessert offering at a recent open house at Bella Kitchen. A very fun and rewarding option to the many pounds of cookies, baby tarts, bread-puddings, and fudges that are ever present (albeit good) at this time of year.
The process is pretty easy, melt your chocolate choice (I have used both bakers semi-sweet chocolate and my favorite brand of semi-sweet chocolate chips) in a double boiler, until glossy and tempered. Next, you will need a spoon and your silicon mini muffin 'tin'. I have tried painting the chocolate, pouring it, and spooning it into the cups. My favorite method is definitely the latter. With a spoon place a dollop of melted chocolate into the mold, and swirl it around until you get good coverage all around the inside of the cup. Continue to the next muffin cup and repeat until full. It seems like I used about 1/3 a bag of chocolate chips for a complete muffin mold. I would hold the mold up to the light to see if I had any apparent thin spots, then filled those in. The next step is important: take a frosting spatula or similar implement and scrape the excess chocolate from the top of the mold. This will help keep your chocolate from cracking when it shrinks as it sets. I would then place the whole thing in the freezer for 10 minutes or so, until firm and then gently press the cup from the bottom until the chocolate cup comes free. Then on to the next one. Being able to turn the silicon cups inside out makes for a handy method for setting all of those delightful little yum-yums free!
Next step is to eat all of the rejects, while preparing your filling-anything from a Kahlua mousse to fresh berries. Have fun!
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